Althea Bell is still heartbroken by her mother’s tragic, premature death—and tormented by the last, frantic words she whispered into young Althea’s ear: Wait for her. For the honeysuckle girl. She’ll find you, I think, but if she doesn’t, you find her.Adrift ever since, Althea is now fresh out of rehab and returning to her family home in Mobile, Alabama, determined to reconnect with her … with her estranged, ailing father. While Althea doesn’t expect him, or her politically ambitious brother, to welcome her with open arms, she’s not prepared for the chilling revelation of a grim, long-buried family secret. Fragile and desperate, Althea escapes with an old flame to uncover the truth about her lineage. Drawn deeper into her ancestors’ lives, Althea begins to unearth their disturbing history…and the part she’s meant to play in it.
Gripping and visceral, this unforgettable debut delves straight into the heart of dark family secrets and into one woman’s emotional journey to save herself from a sinister inheritance.
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I am recommending this book today because the audio on audible is only $2.99 but I am not sure for how long this sale will last. The book explores generational mental illness and addiction from the perspective of a Althea who has been told she will suddenly go crazy at the age of 30. Althea searches for answers to her own demons by tracking down the histories of her mother, grandmother, and great grandmother. Along with her on this journey is an old flame from high school. The mystery that drives Althea’s quest and our reading is her mothers cryptic words the night before she died, “Wait for the honeysuckle girl, she should come to you. If she doesn’t, you should go find her” Who is the honeysuckle girl and what does she have to do with the mental illness and mysterious deaths in Althea’s family? Well to answer that question, you will need to read the book or check out the audio book on audible. Enjoy!
This is the kind of book that takes your breath away – and one that I will not soon forget.
“Burying the Honeysuckle Girls” tells the story of Jinn, Collie, and Trix – three generations of women who all died on their 30th birthdays after going crazy. Or did they? This is a mystery that Althea is desperate to solve. As the fourth generation of these Alabama women, she is just weeks away from turning 30 herself – and believes that she could be going down their same path.
If Althea is going to save herself, she must find out the truth in time. Who was the original Honeysuckle girl, and how might she hold the key to everything?
Finding out the answers, with a backdrop dripping of Southern gothic mystery, is a can’t-stop-turning-the-pages endeavor. One that I recommend you start right away.
I read this book in one day! It was a great southern gothic mystery that kept me turning the pages until I finished. Love, betrayal, family secrets–this book has it all! It’s a haunting story that will stay with you long after you finish it.
I read this so long ago, I don’t remember the story. But, I know I liked it!
Fresh from rehab, Althea Bell finds herself cast out by her once-powerful father and her ambitious brother, labeled crazy, forced to be hospitalized before she turns 30 in just two weeks if she wants any part of her family’s money. Aware that her own mother died mysteriously at 30, she pushes back, and uncovers a family secret that runs through four generations and that ultimately reveals her own internal strength. Burying the Honeysuckle Girls is an exploration of women’s lives and secrets, of women help other women despite their own struggles, protecting them from the abuses of men who feel threatened by women with a deep intuition and a strong connection to the earth.
A page-turning trip to the deep South, with all the lushness of land and language, and none of the heat, humidity, or bugs.
It feels good to have finally read Emily Carpenter’s first book, Burying the Honeysuckle Girls! I have now read all of them except for one, and just like all the others I was really impressed with this book. Carpenter’s writing is engaging, and I was so impressed with everything she managed to fit into this novel. It is heartbreaking, hopeful, and frustrating all at the same time. I read Reviving the Hawthorn Sisters first, not realizing it had a couple of the same characters so of course I had to go back to this one. Althea frustrated me to no end, and I hated some of the decisions she made, but I was so drawn into the story and I had a hard time putting it down.
Burying the Honeysuckle Girls flips back and forth between Althea in present day Mobile, Alabama, and her great-grandmother Jinn in 1930s Sybil Valley, Alabama. I loved getting to see both stories and then how they came together at the end, but both were at times hard to read due to how atrocious most of the men were. There is lots of abuse and general awfulness towards women which both broke my heart and made me insanely angry. So if those are triggers for you then watch out.
I would definitely call Burying the Honeysuckle Girls Southern Gothic, and I love the way Carpenter can weave a tale. It was atmospheric and thoroughly engrossing, and I would recommend it to anyone that doesn’t mind a mystery with triggers that looks at different generations of one family. This was really an amazing debut for this author, and I am looking forward to reading Carpenter’s books for a long time to come.
Ms. Carpenter’s unusual voice drew me in and kept me enthralled from page one. And it was only the beginning…
I loved the dual time line and was interesting one was written in first person, the other in third. I loved this variation! Althea’s family history is a storied one, and as she digs deeper she uncovers secrets that have haunted her and drive her to find out if she’s headed for the same fate…
For me, the history of the deep south intriguing, and disturbing at the same time which lead to the reason I loved this book. When a writer has the ability to draw me fully into a story and leave me thinking about the story long after the last page, he or she has done their job. Well done, Ms. Carpenter.
I found Aleatha’s character both vulnerable and aggravating. She’s a recovering addict, quite brash and outspoken and at times I did not like her at all. Other times I wanted to step into the book and hug her and tell her it would be okay. I was taken aback by Jinn’s and Collie’s stories, but felt they rang true to the backwoods during that time in the deep south’s history.
I enjoyed the mild suspense and the way Ms. Carpenter drew on a family history of mental illness to flesh out the modern day villains, ones who’ve managed to hide in plain sight. The fierce drive Althea calls upon both electrifies her character and pulls her back into her own demons before she’s able to unbury the secret of the “honeysuckle girls”.
I opted for the audio version and absolutely LOVED the narration–a slight southern drawl that fit perfectly with the character.
Brilliant Southern gothic masterpiece. The spectre of Bryce mental hospital is alive and well in these pages, and the intricate weaving of past and present holds the reader in place like pin through an unsuspecting butterfly.
Ok, I had a four hour layover in Miami. I had planned to write. But I started this book on the plane here, and couldn’t stop reading. Only an hour left, so I pretty much forfeited my writing time. But it was worth it. I could not wait to see what happened in this intriguing page turner!
Brilliant and heartbreaking story about a woman confronting the myth of her mother’s mental illness while trying to deal with her own issues. It’s a fascinating look at the how mental health was used as a bludgeon against womens’ agency in generations passed, and how women today still bear the scars of it. Highly recommended.
Great story! Been awhile since I read it, but know I loved this story!
3.5 stars for this book. I’d like to round up to 4 stars, but it is the first book by this author that I have read.
This quick read broke my heart a couple of times with the sadness, trauma and pure anxiety within. This isn’t a feel-good book, but I still found it compelling and hard to put down. The subject matter is pretty heavy, and you feel the weight of it on your shoulders as you wade through everything with the main character. At the start of the book, I didn’t feel sorry for her, but it didn’t take long for me to “switch sides” as it were and recognize that something else was going on.
**SPOILER ALERT**
One of the key takeaways for me is how quickly the power of a suggestion can infect a person. In this case, the suggestion of madness of schizophrenia that her family throws in her face really plagued the main character and in effect almost paralyzed her. For a while she (and yes me as a reader) thought she was losing her mind. That is rather frightening…
Carpenter’s writing is captivating. Descriptive, suspenseful, with those slight overtones of darkness that creates the perfect dynamic.
As an addict, Althea has always been the black sheep of her prestigious political family. When she returns home after completing a stent in a rehab facility, she finds things have changed. Her father has slipped further into his alzheimer’s disease, her brother, Wynn, and his wife have moved into their childhood home, and Wynn’s political career has taken off. Althea finds herself with nowhere to go after being kicked out of the home on the very day she arrives. Worse yet, her father has some very troubling things to say about her impending 30th birthday and her own mother’s death. With the help of her childhood friend, Jay, Althea sets out to uncover the truth about what her father has said. She soon finds out that nothing is what she thought and the people she trusts may not have her best interests at heart.
Carpenter has done an excellent job at vibrant characterization. There were just enough twists to keep the suspense aspect at the forefront while the storyline was enamoring enough to keep the reader engrossed. Great read. 5 stars
A wonderful read, including mystery, heartbreak, humor and family secrets. Emily Carpenter writes with a keen eye for detail, a compassionate heart for broken lives, and no shortage of humor for making fun of the pompous and arrogant. Highly recommend! Emily Carpenter
For Jinn, Collie, and Trix- turning 30 was a curse that heralded their death. Althea,the descendant of these women, is struggling as she returns to Mobile after a stint in rehab. What she finds when she returns is that her family believes the same fate awaits her as her 30th birthday approaches. Althea is forced to investigate her family’s past in order to save herself! A must read for fans of southern gothic literature!
I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this author but I was pleasantly surprised. Despite a few slow spots in the middle, I found myself not wanting to put the book down. The story gives the reader a taste of what the world was like when women were considered more like property than partners in their marriages. I enjoyed the different timelines throughout the book. There were definitely plot twists and turns- a few predictable but mostly unexpected for me. I think this storyline is just fantastic. I like that the story follows the lives of several generations of women and how they were all intertwined.
I have to say that I wasn’t a big fan of Althea in the beginning but as her character develops and you see more of the whole person, I became attached to her and wanted her to finish her quest. The characters throughout the book are very real in their descriptions, personalities, and actions.
This was a very well written mystery that kept me on the edge of my seat for most of it.
BURYING THE HONEYSUCKLE GIRLS by Emily Carpenter is gripping and atmospheric story full of dark family secrets, lies and drama that kept me engaged from beginning to end. This Southern Gothic mystery tells the story of three generations of Alabama women who supposedly all suffer mental breakdowns when they turn thirty years old. Great-granddaughter, Althea Bell, is herself about to turn thirty and she will stop at nothing to learn the basis of her family’s disturbing history before the same thing happens to her. The story is told in alternating points of view and timelines: Althea’s voice in the present day and her great grandmother, Jinn’s in the 1930s. I enjoyed how their heart-wrenching and emotional journeys became intertwined as details of their family secrets past and present were gradually revealed. BURYING THE HONEYSUCKLE GIRLS is a haunting and suspenseful book and I highly recommend it.
Tough, hard, good.
Tough subject matters written in a truthful and hard manner made this a very good read for me! But, boy did I wanna smack some people upside the head!
Generally such books are not among my reading choices, but I gave this one a chance – it sounded interesting and I needed a break from the heavier tomes I generally read that often leave me gasping for air as my brain is stretched to the max. It was a rough start in the beginning – I was not sure what writing style Carpenter was going for – so the reading was very choppy. But I stuck with it and was pleasantly surprised.
This is a quick read, somewhat of a page turner, and a good story. Carpenter settles into her style of writing within the first few chapters – the prose gripping enough and enough twists and turns to keep me interested. A good debut novel and a quick summer read. My only other criticism is that she tied everything up in the ending into a neat little bow – so there was not much to think about or ponder once you are through.
Great book. Wonderfully real characterizations. You care about them. Fast paced and suspenseful. The truth is unearthed in the end. Highly recommend!