In The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows, Olivia Waite continues her sapphic Feminine Pursuits series with a historical romance set in 1820 England. This slow-burning love story is characterized by a profound sense of time and place, with deeply researched professions and politics as well as sensuous prose.
Agatha is a middle-aged widow who needs bees removed from the colony they've made in one of her printing press's storage rooms. Penelope, the town beekeeper, comes over to re-home the bees. It's an unconventional meet-cute, but it works for these two women and introduces them to each other's life's work. Waite is clearly as passionate about her characters' professions as the women are themselves--both historical beekeeping and printing drive the plot and characterization here.
Waite's words are carefully placed, with repeating themes and phrases that echo earlier scenes and sentiments. As the queen is put on trial by her husband for adultery, Agatha flirts with revolution, printing seditious songs by the Widow Wasp. But without a husband, she finds herself vulnerable to government threats and questioning her future. Meanwhile, Penelope is married to her brother's life partner, a marriage of convenience that has suited them both fairly well until this point. Waite threads questions of safety versus freedom throughout this romance. If marriage offers women protection but restricts their options, is it worth the trade?
Readers will cheer for women and queer people of all genders as Penelope and Agatha find their way through obstacles personal and political, to a future with each other--and their bees. --Suzanne Krohn, editor, Love in Panels