The Buzz
The Hive is ready for the screen! Film & TV rights have been optioned by Sony Pictures Television with Josh Berman (Bones, CSI, Drop Dead Diva) producing.
Awards
2021 Award Issue
Shelf Unbound | December/January 2022
“Every year, we receive entry after entry in our annual Shelf Unbound Best Indie Book Competition. We received hundreds of entries this year in all manner of genres. Our overall winner is The Hive by Melissa Scholes Young.”
Interviews
BIBLIO FILE: THE HIVE
American University Magazine | By Adrienne Frank | November 2021
“Literature professor Melissa Scholes Young, WSP ’96, isn’t interested in writing (or even reading) about perfect people. ‘I don’t believe they exist, so I want fiction to tell that truth.'”
Missouri-Born Writer Explores Sisterhood, Survival And Political Divides In Her New Novel
KSMU | July 10, 2021
“The Fehler family isn’t quite a fictionalized version of the family Melissa Scholes Young grew up in. But like the Fehlers, her family ran a fourth-generation pest control business.”
Missouri-Born Writer Explores Sisterhood, Survival And Political Divides In Her New Novel
KCUR | By Anne Kniggendorf | July 10, 2021
“Novelist Melissa Scholes Young’s new book “The Hive” is about four sisters putting the pieces together after their father bankrupts them and then dies during the Great Recession.”
Doomsday Prepping Goes Mainstream
The 1A | By NPR | June 30, 2021
“Doomsday prepping is no longer a fringe obsession. The survivalist movement, which was long stereotyped as made up of gun-wielding, right-wing older white men, is evolving.”
Q&A: Writer Melissa Scholes Young on New Novel, ‘The Hive’
The Daily Yonder | By Olivia Weeks | June 25, 2021
“Melissa Scholes Young is a writer, novelist, and associate professor of Literature at American University. Her second novel, The Hive, was released earlier this month. A Hannibal, Missouri native, both of Scholes Young’s novels are set in rural parts of her home state.”
Melissa Scholes Young Reads a Passage from The Hive
Literary Hub | By Damian Barr’s Literary Salon | June 23, 2021
“In this episode, Melissa Scholes Young reads from The Hive. After Robbie Fehler’s sudden death, his wife and daughters unite in their struggle to save their pest control company’s finances and the family’s future. To survive, they must overcome a political chasm that threatens a new civil war as the values that once united them now divide the very foundation they’ve built. Through alternating point-of-views, grief and regret gracefully give way to the enduring strength of the hive.”
Must Read Fiction interview with Melissa Scholes Young about The Hive
Must Read Fiction | By Erin Popelka | June 15, 2021
“In this interview, Erin Popelka of Must Read Fiction speaks with author Melissa Scholes Young about her second novel, The Hive. The Hive is a story about class in America. It follows four sisters, their family, and their small family business in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. When the patriarch dies, they have to sort out succession in the family.”
TIL Radio: Compelling Characters with Melissa Scholes Young
By The Inner Loop | June 14, 2021
“Our heroes stick with us long after their stories have ended, but how do you create memorable characters? Melissa Scholes Young, author of The Hive, joins us to discuss research, empathy, and just how significant something as simple as eating an apple can be. Plus, we each try to introduce you to a new character without using adjectives or adverbs.”
Melissa Scholes Young – The Hive
The Avid Reader | By Sam Hankin | June 14, 2021
“The Fehler sisters wanted to be more than bug girls but growing up in a fourth- generation family pest control business in rural Missouri, their path was fixed. The family talked about Fehler Family Exterminating at every meal, even when their mom said to separate the business from the family, an impossible task. They tried to escape work with trips to their trailer camp on the Mississippi River, but the sisters did more fighting than fishing. If only there was a son to lead rural Missouri insect control and guide the way through a crumbling patriarchy.”
Melissa Scholes Young Is Creating Buzz With The Hive
Washington City Paper | By Hannah Grieco | June 10, 2021
“D.C. is waking up after a long pandemic year, cautiously but surely, and local writers are eager to connect—both with each other and with their readers, who they’ve often struggled to reach during such an isolating time.”
For Melissa Scholes Young, Writing About Small-Town Missouri Is A Path To Empathy
St. Louis on the Air | By Sarah Fenske | June 9, 2021
“Melissa Scholes Young’s new novel, her second, focuses on a family-run pest control business in small-town Missouri. Young knows of what she writes: She was raised in small-town Missouri — by a family that ran a pest control business.”
P&P Live! Melissa Scholes Young | THE HIVE with Jared Yates Sexton
By Politics and Prose | June 8, 2021
“The Hive is a story of class in America and the fates of four sisters and their family business in a politically divided Midwestern town. After the sudden death of their patriarch, the surprising details of succession in his will are revealed and the mother’s long-term affair surfaces as her apocalypse prepper training intensifies. Facing an economic recession and new civil war amidst the backdrop of growing fear and resentment, the sisters unite in their struggle to save the family foundation they’ve built.”
The Ms. Q&A: Melissa Scholes Young on Feminism Rising from Rural Roots
Ms. Magazine | By Corinne Ahrens | June 8, 2021
“In politics, academia, pop culture and the arts, a very narrow image of rural America has been carelessly constructed and blindly reused to the point of sweeping generalizations overshadowing reality. We often see rural characters on the screen (think: films like Deliverance or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, as well as shows like Buckwild and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo) and on the page who are backwards: racist, homophobic, misogynistic, uneducated, uncultured, violent and even inbred—perpetuating the idea that everyone in rural communities must be some combination of those stereotypes.”
TBR: The Hive by Melissa Scholes Young
Work-in-Progress | By Leslie Pietrzyk | June 7, 2021
“I want readers to know you can disagree with someone about politics and still love them. You can love people that hurt you from a safe distance. Families are messy and empathy is hard, worthy work.”
We’re All A Buzz About Melissa Scholes Young’s The Hive
Book Club Babble | By Amy Wilhelm | June 7, 2021
“Melissa Scholes Young’s novel The Hive is a story that will enchant you from the first page. Growing up in Missouri, the Fehler sisters and their parents run a generations-old pest control business. Even though the business has been passed down, the girls don’t want to accept the out-dated ideas about women and business that their father Robbie isn’t ready to let go of. Their mother Grace has different priorities – saving the family if all hell breaks loose and finally needing to use those end-of-the-world supplies she keeps on recounting and reorganizing.”
HYPOCRISY IS RIPE FOR STORIES: TALKING WITH MELISSA SCHOLES YOUNG
The Rumpus | By Megan Cummins | June 7, 2021
“Melissa Scholes Young’s second novel, The Hive, is a book with a heart that grows bigger than its central metaphor. The “hive” is the home of the Fehler family in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, and their fourth-generation pest control business. The hive buzzes, vibrant with the lives of the mother and queen bee, Grace, and her four daughters—Maggie, Jules, Tammy, and Kate. When the family’s patriarch, Robbie, dies unexpectedly, these five women struggle not just to keep the family business above water, but to keep the hive alive—and to find the ways his absence allows them to thrive.”
Roots: An Interview with Melissa Scholes Young
Fiction Writer’s Review | By Steven Wingate | June 7, 2021
“It’s a great pleasure to read authors to simultaneously know their geographical territory and understand how to make the bones they dig up there feel like they belong to your own family. Melissa Scholes Young, a born and bred Missourian, amply demonstrates this capacity in her new novel, The Hive (Turner/Keylight Books). It tells the story of a “bug family” with a multigenerational pest control business on the Missouri River town of Cape Girardeau.”
How Does a Book Get Adapted for TV or Film?
Literary Hub | By Chaya Bhuvaneswar | May 20, 2021
“How many times have you discovered a favorite movie or TV series, only to realize it’s based on a book? As streaming services demand more and more stories to satisfy our viewing needs, they are relying more than ever on the publishing industry to provide them. You know, books. But what goes into the long process of turning a novel into a season of television?”
Virtual Craft Chat with Melissa Scholes Young
The Writer’s Center | By Amy Freeman | May 6, 2021
“The Writer’s Center presents a FREE virtual chat about the craft of fiction! We’re joined by novelist Melissa Scholes Young to discuss her new novel, The Hive. Melissa is in conversation with Amy Freeman, essayist, fiction writer, and Development Director at The Writer’s Center.”
Reviews
A Review of The Hive
Literary Mama | By Teresa Burns Murphy | November/December 2021
“It is an open secret that women are expected to check their humanity at the obstetrics department door. While real-life mothers are required to “woman up” by taking on the mantle of motherhood without a murmur of complaint, literary mothers are free to inhabit that psychosocial landscape in all manner of circumstances and temperaments. “
Sundress Reads: Review of The Hive
Sundress | By Victoria Carrubba | November 8, 2021
“Though each character has their own obstacles they must overcome independently, the Fehler clan comes together in the face of their uncertain futures for Fehler Family Exterminating. With five distinct voices, the Fehler womens’ stories are guaranteed to connect with readers and remind them of the importance of family as the Fehler’s learn that each day is not guaranteed.”
25 Books That Should Be On Your Radar: June 2021
Writer’s Bone | By Daniel Ford | June 30, 2021
“We got an early look at Melissa Scholes Young’s The Hive and had been waiting anxiously for readers to get their hands on it this month. Didn’t take long for them to fall in love with it like we did!”
Book Review: The Hive
Boone County Journal | By Travis Naughton | June 23, 2021
“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.”
Desert Isle Keeper: The Hive
All About Romance | By Lisa Fernandes | June 13, 2021
“Melissa Scholes Young’s terrific southern coming of age tale is an interesting character portrait that manages to combine an emotional slice-of-life tale with a feminist mien that makes the entire experience a fascination.”
The Hive by Melissa Scholes Young
Mom Egg Review | By DeMisty D. Bellinger | June 10, 2021
“The Hive puts a finger on what American media has been chasing since the Tea Party formed and through Donald Trump’s term as president: small-town Midwest Americans’ motivations. In her second novel, Melissa Scholes Young gives us the Fehlers, a working-class family holding on to a struggling small business during the height of the Great Recession. Through self-discovery and economic necessity, the Fehler Sisters move the family into the twenty-first century, but not without pain and suffering.”
Book Review: Stick to “The Hive”
The Geekiary | By Brahidaliz Martinez | June 5, 2021
“Melissa Scholes Young, the author of the acclaimed novel Flood and Scrap Metal Baby, wields her storytelling magic to create The Hive. It’s an astonishing narrative about a mother and her four daughters surviving the aftermath of the patriarch’s passing.”
13 Great Beach Reads From Well-Read DC Types
Washingtonian | By Sherri Dalphonse | May 27, 2021
“This compelling family drama by a local author explores family and identity in moving, gorgeous prose.”
5 BOOKS BY D.C. WRITERS TO WATCH FOR IN 2021
Book Riot | By Claire Handscombe | May 11, 2021
“Washington, D.C. is a great place to live if you’re an avid reader. We’ve got the Library of Congress, lots of great independent bookshops, and a city brimming with talented writers. Here are five of the latest or upcoming books by D.C. writers.”
Read this: ‘The Hive’ by Melissa Scholes Young
St. Louis Magazine | By Jen Roberts | May 5, 2021
“The book, which tells the story of one family’s resilience, is available June 8. It’s Scholes Young’s second novel, as well as her second set in Missouri.”
The Hive
By Shelf Unbound | April/ May 2021
“I know a book is good when I wake up at 4am on a Sunday and pick up where I left off the day before.”
