New Release | The Sorrow of Bees by Andie Holman #romantasy #fantasy #newrelease #bookboost
- N. N. Light
- Apr 3
- 5 min read
Title: The Sorrow of Bees
Author: Andie Holman
Genre: Fantasy, romantasy
Book Blurb:
Tell the bees, for they understand heartache.
Dark magic comes at a cost, one that Jelly, warrior mermaid, must pay. After a brutal ritual gives her Fae powers, a vital piece of herself is missing. She must abandon everything and everyone to find it.
If she fails her mission, her lover’s brother will never again see the sun, trapped in a horrifying dimension called the Hellhole. If she fails, her lover Mako may not forgive her. If she fails, she will never forgive herself.
She’s sent to a queendom so foreign she can barely breathe, transformed into a body she can’t possibly understand. Grappling with the enormity of her task, she struggles to appreciate the sorrows of the pollinators.
But she must if she wants to succeed.
Excerpt:
LEIF
I brought my fresh bounty close to the lava rocks, slicing and skinning the prize. Both girls turned their heads in dismay, refusing to watch. The wheels turned in my head slowly. Amphibi. Amphibians. Salamanders. They were eating their kin. Oh Gods.
I swallowed thickly. I had nothing else to give them. “I’m sorry. About the salamanders. I’ve searched for alternatives, but they are the only things we can eat.” I made quick work of the meat, hating I had no other option for them. I cleared my throat. “Amphibi magic is incredibly rare. No wonder he wanted you. What does he get from it?”
With a glance at her sister, Trix answered. “Our blood is toxic. One drop could kill ten grown men. He told us we were special, and he could create an army from us.” My face must have paled, because she rushed to soothe me. “We’ve learned to contain our poison. In our brethren, our skin is lethal, but we’ve adapted. If I said Phyllobates terribilis to you, would you know what that is?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t seen a book in years.
She sighed. “We’re endangered. We come from the line of the golden frog, but more important is our contribution to–”
Xeno cut her off. “No. No more, Trix. If we survive this, we’ll tell him.” She changed the subject. “You carry the mark as well. Have you tried to escape?”
I finished my salamander, rubbing my greasy fingers on my pants, trying not to snag them with my claws. “As soon as I get close to the entrance, I’m thrown back. I’ve tried all of them.”
Trix wiped her face. “The mark must be some sort of binding spell. If you have one too, there’s no hope. We’ll just hide until we’re caught or we starve.” Her thin shoulders rolled forward in defeat.
I shook my head. “I don’t believe that. There has to be a way out.”
The Hellhole was a labor camp; a place where Fae went to die. I’d seen them mining the strange rocks. They chipped hunks of it from the higher walls to avoid being burned, but the skin on their hands blackened and peeled. When someone collapsed from the backbreaking work, guards unceremoniously rolled them into the glowing pit, their bodies becoming ash instantaneously. I collected the rocks without injury from a pile of discards, scampering to deliver them among my people.
Ordinary Fae, with lesser magic, usually ended up in the Hellhole for political reasons, having stupidly dared to criticize the ruling family. Loyalists reported them and they wound up here. Without the x on their wrists, they could leave, and I’d helped many find their freedom, leading them through the maze of tunnels to various entrances. The Fae I’d rescued from the bleeding room were different. They had deep magical powers, bore marks, and couldn’t escape. If I saw the x, I brought them here, the only place I could guarantee their safety.
Trix gestured toward the lava rocks. “Do you know what those are?”
I shrugged. “They’re cold until you whisper over them and heat them. Are they some kind of fuel?”
Trix nodded solemnly. She tipped her head to the side, studying me. “Not everyone can activate them. You have the power. It’s very curious, Leif. You can swim in the waters and light the rocks. And the eels? You touch them with your bare hands?”
“They give a shock if you don’t catch them just right.”
She frowned. “They’re elecatraba eels. They’re toxic. Usually, just brushing against them would kill you. I wonder what the connection is. For some reason, there are parts of you I can’t read. Your energy is clouded, murky.”
She suddenly shrieked with fright, making me spin. Flower, a wizened and mischievous Fae, stepped out of the cave wall. I introduced her and chastened her for scaring the girls. “Flower, some people think it’s rude to eavesdrop. Or glamor themselves to camouflage with the walls.”
She cackled and shrugged up a shoulder, causing her beige sack to lift, displaying knobbly knees. She pointed at me, speaking to Trix. “He bears an uncanny resemblance to someone I used to know, but I can’t be certain, so I shall not assume. Leif, I came to ask for more eels. Please bring them when you can.” She hummed to herself as she tottered off down the tunnel, leaving us alone.
Xeno pressed her hand to her mouth. “May I have some water?” She waved at the wall, holding my water-catching contraption. I’d rummaged through the storage area behind the bleeding room, finding large glass containers I’d jimmy rigged with rope. A fresh stream came through a crack at various times, brackish but drinkable. I handed her a chipped cup of the turbid liquid. Trix waved for it when Xeno was done.
Trix took a sip, looking up at the ceiling. She screeched in alarm, tossing the cup in the air, kicking the lava rocks, and backpedaled to the wall next to Xeno with wide eyes. I shouted, gripping up my knife. “What?” I following her frozen gaze. My breath escaped me and I rubbed my eyes while shaking my head. Impossible. Impossible!
It was Mako. He was much older, his chin wider, with long hair but the same cobalt blue eyes. Ink covered most of his chest and arms. He was shouting, gesticulating wildly, but there was no sound. Falling forward from his neck was the Hai Matau.
I laughed like a fool, tears streaming from my eyes. My brother had finally found me.
Buy Links (including Goodreads and BookBub):
Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-sorrow-of-bees-andie-holman/1147150002?ean=2940180601384
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1730362
Author Biography:
Raised by pirates, Andie believed faeries lived in the snapdragons. She’s loved fantasy stories forever, and left her career in medicine to research climate change for the world-building in her magical series, The Laughter of the Sun.
Many places have been home: Bermuda, West Virginia, England, Colorado, and now, a small sliver of Canada, nestled in the Pacific, where she lives with her husband and menagerie of animals.
Years ago, she wrote Love Your Scar, a non-fiction, self-help guide to freeing restrictive tissue. It will seem out of place, another world, another time, compared to her current writing.
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