Here is the Beehive

The debut novel for adults from Sarah Crossan. The current Laureate na nÓg (Ireland's Children's Literature Laureate), she has been awarded the CILIP Carnegie Medal as well as the YA Book Prize, the CBI Book of the Year award and the CLiPPA Poetry Award. Her work has sold 350,000 copies and been published in 24 languagesPiercingly heartbreaking and grippingly readable, here is an author and a book for book groups and book prizes, for magazines and broadsheets, that you'll want to press into the hands of everyone you know. It will enthral fans of David Nicholls, Jojo Moyes, and Gail HoneymanA multi-award-winning author who has pioneered the free verse novel in the UK, Sarah Crossan is an author of formidable charisma poised to star in a major publicity campaignSarah Crossan has lived in Dublin, London and New York, and now lives in Hertfordshire. She graduated with a degree in Philosophy and Literature before training as an English and drama teacher at the University of Cambridge. Crossan is the current Laureate na nÓg (Ireland's Children's Literature Laureate). Here is the Beehive is her first novel for adults. sarahcrossan.com @SarahCrossanSHORTLISTED FOR THE AN POST IRISH BOOK AWARD What would you do if you lost someone the world never knew was yours? For three years, Ana has been consumed by an affair with Connor, a client at her law firm. Their love has been consigned to hotel rooms and dark corners of pubs, their relationship kept hidden from the world. So the morning that Ana's company receives a call to say that Connor is dead, her secret grief has nowhere to go. Desperate for an outlet, Ana seeks out the shadowy figure who has always stood just beyond her reach - Connor's wife Rebecca. 'Utterly gripping' RODDY DOYLE 'A triumph - crackling with psychological and sexual ambiguity' JULIE MYERSON, OBSERVER 'This book is just sublime. I loved every page' CAITRIONA BALFE 'Unmissable ... Incredible' STYLIST 'Amazing ... I read it in one sitting, completely swept up in Ana's fragmented narrative' EMMA HEALEY 'Dark, riveting, powerful' ELIZABETH DAY What happens when you lose something the world never knew was yours? A shattering and compulsive novel about transgression and desire, secrecy and loss Amazing ... I absolutely love the form, which breathes new life into a familiar story making it both more elegant and more brutal. I read it in one sitting, completely swept up in Ana's fragmented narrativeExcellent ... An eviscerating account of modern marriageSex, work and motherhood all come under the microscope in this vivid portrait of the agony of being "the other woman"This lyrical account of an adulterous affair and its brutal aftermath is all the more effective and affecting for the spare, sparse style and I expect it to win as many awards as Sarah Crossan's YA fiction has doneI absolutely gobbled it up: dark, riveting, powerful ... Delivers on a whole new levelA stunnerRaw, emotional and wistfulI read this stunning book standing up in two hours. An eviscerating take on marriage and adulteryA beautifully crafted sucker punch of a read. Sarah Crossan has always had an exquisite way with words and in this she uses poetic prose to craft an honest and oftentimes gritty exploration of two intertwined marriages, slowly unravelling. Painfully believable, passionate and occasionally heartbreaking, Here is the Beehive provides further proof that Sarah Crossan is an infinitely gifted writer. We're lucky to have herA searing portrait of addictive love and grief and the devastation human beings can wreak on each other ... It is an addictive read, painful, unsettling, full of uncomfortable truths, yet the work itself resounds with its own unique bleak beautyDevastatingly honest, heartbreaking and tender ... This is the most extraordinary novel I have read in years in form, ambition and scope - an incredible achievement and an instant classic. I will read it again and againHere is the Beehive is an unflinching take on the destructive power of obsessive love. It is also a highly original study of the grief that dare not speak its name - the grief of the other womanI couldn't put it down. I just loved it. The prose is clean yet rich, her dialogue ear-perfectHow does she get so much emotion into so few words? Sarah Crossan is a miracle worker ... Utterly meaningful, original and accomplishedPRAISE FOR SARAH CROSSAN: 'One of our most original writers. Sarah has almost created an entirely new form of writing in her novels that is hers and hers aloneCompelling and beautifully wroughtThe princess of pacing . Crossan always finds humour and humanity in the darkness; it's impossible not to read it in a single gulpTruly remarkableThere are familiar flavours and notes and moments of powerful sweetness, but she complicates them with such power and subtlety, in a way that doesn't alienate the reader. The tang of fire is in there, always, leaving a unique aftertaste. You wouldn't mistake it for any other writer, and you won't soon forget itUtterly sublime