Book Review: Hive by A. J. Betts

Title: Hive
Author: A.J.Betts
Series: Book #1
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
Publication Date: 26th June 2018
Pages:272
RRP: $16.99
Format read: Paperback
Source: Publisher

All I can tell you is what I remember, in the words that I have.

Hayley tends to her bees and follows the rules in the only world she has ever known.
Until she witnesses the impossible: a drip from the ceiling.

A drip? It doesn't make sense.

Yet she hears it, catches it. Tastes it.
Curiosity is a hook.

What starts as a drip leads to a lie, a death, a boy, a beast, and too many awful questions.

Hive is the first in a gripping two-book series by award-winning and international bestselling author A. J. Betts.

I’ve read quite a few reviews and heard a lot about A.J. Betts novel Zack & Mia so I was delighted to have the opportunity to read and review Betts’ latest novel Hive.

Hayley’s world consisted of 6 hexagonal houses each connected to a common room by corridors. Above these was a nursery and above that the Upper house for The Council. The Council was the ruling group which was headed by the Judge, a role that was inherited.

Much like a bee hive everyone has their designated role. There were those that nurture and teach, those that prepare meals, those that tend the gardens and those that work in the machine rooms with everyone working together for a common good.

Hayley is a gardener, she tends the hives, her voice is young and naive which is appropriate for someone brought up in a cult-like world where every part of your life is set out and controlled from birth to death. Chimes sound and are adhered to. They signal work times, meal times and sleep time where the people are locked in dorms. Made me think it was very similar to a prison.

No one questions their world, that is just the way it is, God’s way. If anyone questions why something happens the elders simply answer “God works in mysterious ways.”

Hayley is inquisitive and she can’t help breaking rules and asking questions and not accepting vague answers. But they have ways of dealing with people who ask too many questions.

Hayley was instantly likeable, so young and naive. She was inquisitive and strong. She quite often spoke her mind with dire consequences.

The story was like nothing I’ve read before. Note quite cult, not quite dystopian and not quite science fiction, but a mixture of the three.

 I had a lot of questions reeling around in my head while I was reading the story. Some were answered, others weren’t. But I must say I was totally sucked into the story shocked at how the community lived and accepted this way of living; but then I suppose they knew no better.

The ending left me holding my breath and eagerly awaiting the next book, Rogue, due to be released in 2019. Just to whet your appetite there is a one page teaser for the next book at the end of Hive.

An exquisite tale of a girl who asked too much.

Content: one graphic scene where a dead body is dismembered

Recommended 15+

4/5 stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟

This review is part of the Beauty & Lace book club

This is book #18 in the Australian Women Writers challenge

And part of the Book Lover Book Review Aussie author challenge

A. J. Betts is an Australian author, speaker, teacher and cyclist and has a PhD on the topic of wonder, in life and in reading.
She has written three novels for young adults. Her third novel, Zac & Mia, won the 2012 Text Prize, the 2014 SCBWI Crystal Kite Award, and the 2014 Ethel Turner prize for young adults at the New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards and was shortlisted for the 2014 Queensland Literary Award. Inspired by her work in a children's hospital, Zac & Mia is available in 14 countries.
A. J. is originally from Queensland but has lived in Perth since 2004.