The Hive is a story about class in America and the fates of four Midwestern sisters and their family business.
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“How about a nice, new family drama with more than its share of comic spirit, marked by its Midwestern flavor? ‘The Hive‘ by Melissa Scholes Young.”
~Chicago Tribune
“The Hive is a novel drawn from author Melissa Scholes Young’s Midwestern roots. A rural family makes ends meet with their multigenerational pest-control business, but when the patriarch passes away, his will cedes control of the company to a distant cousin rather than to the surviving women. The repercussions of an economic recession further buffet the quarrelsome family, and the matriarch’s involvement with an “apocalypse prepper” group draws her away from family connections. The Hive is a memorable saga of sisterhood, life-testing challenges, and ties that bind, highly recommended.”
~Midwest Book Review
“A captivating story…The Hive a novel worth reading.”
~Washington Independent Review of Books
“Readers won’t easily forget the voices of the Fehler women.”
~Portland Book Review
“I know a book is good when I wake up at 4am on a Sunday and pick up where I left off… a front row seat to the challenges women face in a small town in Midwest America.”
~Shelf Unbound
“The Hive is a pretty perfect peek into life into a certain kind of family – Midwestern but not as traditionalist as it thinks it is – as politics, future fears and dreams collide with the harsh realities of life. The Fehler sisters are family though – they manage to figure out that they need each other to survive, even the wanderlust-y Jules. You may think you have read this kind of novel before, but there’s a sense of earthy wisdom to this one that makes it feel fresh and new.”
~Lisa Fernandes, All About Romance
“The Hive by Melissa Scholes Young is real and raw and will pin you back in your seat. It’s a powerful portrait of a family coming to terms with a changing world that some are ready for, and others are not. The Fehler family is beautifully rendered in their messy complexity—flawed, tragic, and hopeful, all at once. I loved it.”
~Alex George, author of The Paris Hours, owner of Skylark Bookshop
“The Fehler clan does everything it can to protect the hive, but it is not until their father dies that the ‘bug girls’ can fully complete their metamorphosis. The Hive has so many things that readers look for in a novel – great characters and musings on family dynamics, feminism, and grief. The sisters will stay with you long after you make the journey with them to break free, take adventures, accept risks, make choices, have hope. Kudos to Melissa Scholes Young. The Hive is the family saga I have been waiting for.”
~Pamela Klinger-Horn, Valley Bookseller
“The Hive is a rich and complex family narrative. Melissa Scholes Young gives us the story of a family-owned exterminator company and the family that runs it. Imperfect, real, and true-to-life characters are presented in a page-turning story line that book clubs will devour!”
~Mary Webber O’Malley, Skylark Bookshop
“I love when an author takes me some place I’ve never been. Much like an epic Jane Smiley novel, Melissa Scholes Young transports us to rural America, inside a family owned pest control business and four sisters’ struggle to keep it afloat in a changing political landscape. The Hive is a moving and completely immersive reading experience.”
~Marcy Dermansky, author of Very Nice
“You’ll buzz through The Hive, Melissa Scholes Young’s vibrant second novel about a close family and their closely held secrets. In a small conservative town, where Mark Twain scholars abide with Rush Limbaugh followers, four daughters and their mother try to save the family’s exterminating business. Each yearns to be true to herself and the hive, as loyalty wrestles with self-discovery. A loving portrait of a family that closes ranks even as it opens its heart.”
~Mary Kay Zuravleff, author of Man Alive!
“There may be no person more fatalistic than the child of a small business owner in rural America—your destiny sits down to dinner with you every night. In The Hive, the kind of authentic and deeply felt novel that could only be crafted from personal experience, the Fehler sisters grapple with grief, regret, and their mother’s secrets as they reel from the sudden death of their father, a successful small town exterminator, and his surprise plan of succession. As so often happens in the contemporary Midwest, the family’s internal struggles become enmeshed in the deepening political divide around them, as Melissa Scholes Young gracefully and compassionately captures the moving story of four young women seeking out their own independence while drawn, inexorably, back, and back again, into the family business.”
~Dean Bakopoulos, author of Summerlong
“I love books about sisters, and I love The Hive, which has all the eccentricity and yearning of some of my favorite sister stories, like We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and Sisters By a River by Barbara Comyns. From the very first chapter, The Hive is a deft, delightfully weird, and often comical family saga.”
~Timothy Schaffert, author of The Perfume Thief
“I thoroughly enjoyed The Hive. Melissa Scholes Young drops us into a midwestern family as they are facing an uncertain future. Four daughters and their mother must navigate what is expected of them from tradition and their community, but ultimately each confronts what is needed to survive and thrive.”
~Julie Slavinsky, Warwick’s
“When a sudden catastrophic event leaves the women of the Fehler family and exterminating business feeling betrayed and abandoned they each must find their own way of dealing with adversity. Filled with the messiness of family emotions and presumptions, along with the age old question of ‘who do I want to be and how do I fit in?’ this sweet and delightfully quirky novel will draw you in and not let go.”
~Betsy Von Kerens, The Bookworm Omaha
“Seldom does one encounter a book set in the Midwest that depicts its people as anything more than the hackneyed stereotypes that live in the imaginations of residents of the east and west coasts. In her new novel, The Hive, Melissa Scholes Young paints an honest and stunningly beautiful portrait of life in rural America that readers from all walks of life will appreciate. The Hive is a story about the Fehler family of Cape Girardeau, Missouri, ostensibly led by patriarch Robbie, owner of a fourth-generation, family-owned, pest control business, husband of doomsday-prepper Grace, and father of four daughters who must balance their desire for independence with their loyalty to their adoring, yet chauvinistic, dad. As any beekeeper knows, a hive is not a patriarchy, and neither is the Fehler family. While Grace is the Queen Bee of The Hive, daughter Maggie yearns to prove to her father that she is ready to take over the family business, favoring innovation over the status quo that has landed the family in dire financial straits.”
~Travis Naughton, Boone County Journal
