eARC Review – Between You, Me, and the Honeybees by Amelia Diane Coombs

Title: Between You, Me, and the Honeybees

Author: Amelia Diane Coombs

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Reader’s

Publication date: June 22nd, 2021

368 pages

4/5 stars

Goodreads Synopsis

Perfect for fans of Jenn Bennett and Sarah Dessen, this swoon-worthy novel follows a teen girl during her California summer of beekeeping, secrets, and stolen kisses.

Josie Hazeldine has just graduated from high school, and she’s ready for a summer full of sunshine, beekeeping, and…lying to her mom.

Josie’s mom couldn’t be more proud of her daughter going to college, something she never got to do. But Josie wants to stay in her California hometown and take over the family business, Hazeldine Honey. So that college acceptance her mom is thrilled about? Yeah, Josie turned it down. But she’s going to come clean—just not yet.

The neighbor’s artsy, adorable grandson who’s in town for the summer makes Josie’s web of lies even more tangled. He’s into Josie and the feeling is very mutual, but he’s a Blumstein—the sworn enemy of the Hazeldines and their number one competition in the annual Honey Show at the end of July. As their secret fling goes on, Josie knows she’s getting in way too deep to leave him behind when summer’s over.

Can Josie keep the boy she can’t stop thinking about without the secrets she’s juggling crashing down around her?

Review

Between You, Me, and the Honeybees is a sweet, YA contemporary romance about an amateur beekeeper, Josie, who wants nothing more in life than to run her family’s apiary when she graduates high school. She absolutely does not want to go to college, but her mother thinks she is. But that’s not the only secret she’s keeping… She’s also secretly dating the grandson of her family’s fiercest rivals, and her mother hates that family. What’s Josie to do?

I loved learning more about beekeeping in this book! It’s such a unique setting that you don’t think of much but was very interesting to read. The romance portion was very adorable, kind of insta-love but I enjoyed this one whereas I don’t generally like insta-love. The sneaking around and secrets also reminded me of being a teenager and hiding boys from my parents!

I ended up severely disliking one of the side characters by the end, which kept this book from being a 5 star read for me. I just didn’t even like reading about this character by the end, and it cut down on my enjoyment of the book as a whole. But, for fans of Jenn Bennett I definitely suggest giving this one a try!

Thank you to Simon Teen and Netgalley for an early copy in exchange for an honest review.

Happy reading, folks!