This was my first time reading a romance book so I didn't really know what to expect going in but I really did enjoy this book a lot. Agatha and Penelope are fantastic characters and it was a pleasure to follow their relationship throughout the story. I think this book appealed to me because the book isn't completely focused on the romance, it's very much focused on politics and the place of women in society during this time period.  I think this is a good book for anyone who just wants to dip their toes into the genre for the first time or for anyone who's not looking for a lot of heavy romance.

This is a slow-burn romance that focuses on two working class women in a time where most romances focus on ballrooms. I found all of the details about beehives and publishing fascinating. And the letters between the heroines were fun and interesting. But it definitely felt more like a story about overcoming challenges in a difficult historical moment than a love story for most of the novel.

The author does an amazing job with the historical details and the everyday moments of life. I really liked both main characters and thought the subplot with Agatha’s son interesting too. It is rare to read romances about older women, and Waite does this well. 

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from the publisher and Net Galley in return for a fair review.

I loved this book. For me, it hit so many things that I am interested in: I love historical fiction. I love books about queer folks with children. I am a hobbyist bee-keeper. 

This was such a good book with such a terrible cover. Here are a few modest image ideas to consider instead: Since Agatha runs a printing press in 1820, having a cover in the style of the etchings she made is a no-brainer. Penelope is a bee-keeper using the skep style of hive. Well, I'm a modern bee-keeper and I still had to look up what a skep beehive looked like. (Did you know straw skeps are illegal in the US because of sulphur method of harvesting honey is considered inhumane!) Perhaps a skyline view of contemporary London where Agatha with the castle where King George and Caroline lived in the background. Or, maybe the small village where Penelope lives, with the pub, the church, or the cemetery included. Maybe a boat far out at sea indicating Penelope's absent husband. A wall of skep beehives with the garden surrounding it. Perhaps some scandalous sculptures are just visible around a corner. Two women walking a path with a wheelbarrow full of bee-keeping supplies between them. The sketch Agatha does of Penelope during the protests that is then printed and sold.

Please don't be put off by this cover that seems to have no relationship to the contents of this book.

I didn't think it was possible to love a book more than the Ladies Guide to Celestial Mechanics, but Olivia Waite managed to write an even better book for her second in this series. This is such a beautiful friends to lovers story and the fact that it's a middle-age romance makes it even better. I can't wait to recommend this book to everyone.

I have to admit that I only requested this book because of the ridiculously over the top cover. This is not the sort of book I ordinarily read and I expected something totally campy because the cover is so cringe-worthy. Perhaps I'm especially harsh because my family and I do a lot of period reenactment so I know a bit more than most what clothes and hairstyles should look like in 1800's England, but come on. The cover shows what looks like two young women with one in a tacky prom dress and one in a 90's tuxedo jacket and blouse out of the disco era, with modern hairstyles. The book itself is a period piece about two middle aged English women in the early 1800's. The real characters are in their 40's and one is plump while the other has gray hair. Why not show this sort of women, and why not spring for anything remotely like realistic clothes and hairstyles (you can see examples of Georgian fashions at the time here: http://wemakehistory.com/Fashion/Geor...)?

Far from being campy, the book itself actually quite feminist, historic and serious. One of the heroines is a beekeeper who's in a marriage in name only (her husband and her brother are the true couple, who spend their time at sea so they can be together) and the other is a widow who runs a printing press. The women's friendship develops over time into a deep love and lust, but neither thinks the other feels the same.

Along the way, there is a ton of historic information about what was going on at the time with the king who tried to charge his wife with adultery to obtain a divorce, women's rights and specifically wives' rights, and also beekeeping and things like how printing presses worked. There is a ton about how Penelope cares for the bees. The author either raises bees herself or really did her research on historic beekeeping practices. As an American, I didn't know any of this history about the Queen Caroline and it was somewhat interesting but I also felt a bit like I was trying to keep up with someone else's family history after jumping into it.

It's a very slow moving romance, and it's as much a period novel and a novel about bees, women's rights and British history as it is a romance. The characters are likeable but I didn't really feel the passion as much as it was described. And while you get through 2/3 of the book before there's any sex, when there is some there really is some. I never really thought I'd learn the name for vintage British wooden sex toys or their rather endearing names for lady parts, but now I know. :)

All in all it's a very well done period novel but it's hard to pin down who it would be best for. The story is sweet and the characters are likeable. If you like period romances (and bees and British history!), it will likely be a great fit.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

I wasn’t expecting to like this book as much as I did. I expected it to be overly floral and reminiscent of the boddice rippers that you may have found your mother hiding away from prying eyes. Despite the cover, this was an elegant historical romance that made me want to go back and find the first novel in the series. 

Agatha Griffin never expected to find a colony of bees in her warehouse, but the woman who would come to her rescue was just as surprising of a discovery. Penelope Flood, bee-keeper extraordinaire spends most of her time taking care of the beehives around town. She floats between the wealthy and the tradesmen. 
Through beekeeping, Agatha and Penelope form a bond. Penelope’s letters originally intended to keep Agatha updated on her relocated bees, shifted into companionship. I love when authors include letters between characters. You get a clear picture of their voice, their sarcasm and sense of humor. It feels intimate and genuine. 

I melted once they finally gave in to their feelings. I’ll say this, I was not expecting the romance scenes to be written how they were. They weren’t cheesy or unbelievable. These women together were passionate, insatiable, and exciting. 

While they were finding themselves as a couple, they found themselves as individual women. Agatha had to be strong, business-minded, and needed to take care of everything around her, found her match with Penelope. Penelope, who had grown used to loneliness found a true companionship with Agatha. 

*insert wistful sigh here*

This was a great read, despite the cover, and I hope to read more from Olivia Waite.

I enjoyed this book. I liked learning more about bees and beekeeping and life for women in the early 1800's. This was a slow burn romance so, that did make me want this book pick up the pace. Also felt a little too long and felt like some scenes could've been cut.

I adored The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics earlier this year so I was so excited to read this follow up. Unfortunately, although I was absolutely entranced by the beginning, I felt like it really dragged in the middle half, and finally picked up again around the 75% mark. Unfortunately, picked up in the last chunk meant, for me, getting completely outraged by sedition and libel law and becoming more grateful than probably ever before for the First Amendment in the United States. That said, this book is slow and beautiful and if you're in the mood for slow and beautiful, I would definitely recommend. 

This follows Agatha Griffin, a widow, and Penelope Flood, a married beekeeper. Agatha finds in the Melliton office of her print shop a swarm of bees and freaks out and Penelope is sent to fix things. The two slowly develop a really great friendship centered around bees, which even more slowly develops into a romantic relationship. In the background, there's a lot going on with Queen Catherine and King George and sedition and libel laws. From a historical perspective, it's really interesting, but I kind of wish that the focus had been kept tighter to the relationship between Penelope and Agatha. I say all that, but am also forced to acknowledge that I really liked the secondary characters in this book and felt like they were real people too. So I do recommend this one, but I just want to make sure people are prepared for this one to move very slowly.

There's just so much to love in this book! Historical women loving women, beekeeping, printing, and the sedition you always know accompanies historical printing! The writing is rich and detailed, and the burn is slow but when it gets there, it's really there. I didn't love this quite as much as her previous work, but I'm so excited to keep reading her writing.

***Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC in exchange for my honest review.***

Olivia Waite's prose is stunning throughout this novel; she weaves extremely evocative - yet not inaccessible, or jarringly literary -  sections of prose seamlessly with fantastic humor, ranging from silly to bawdy. Her characters are all exceptionally three-dimensional, including the supporting cast, and those who appear only a handful of times; the two main characters are deeply complex, and their unique complexities are thoroughly and gently unearthed. In particular, the exploration of Penelope's helpfulness as a shield (and a detriment to her own care) struck me deeply, and so did the continued affirmation of Agatha's love and care for her deceased husband. There is never a point where her relationship with him was trivialized in light of her relationship with Penelope, and her grief was always shown with care.

I was also incredibly impressed at the detail that went into the setting - as someone not very familiar with the Regency era (or rather, thanks to a quick search, the apparent end of it), I thoroughly enjoyed reading about the political intricacies, marches, radicalism, and philosophy of the time period. The political happenings of 1819-1820 were pivotal to the novel, but I never felt alienated for lack of background knowledge, or lost in detail. I actually took time to look up some of the events and bills mentioned, I got that curious to know more of what was going on! The amount of care that went into the setting - and the way the characters navigated it, their fears and joys and hopes - was overwhelmingly present. And the beekeeping! Much like "Lady's Guide," there was so much information packed into every page, but the novel never felt didactic or regurgitative.

This book was genuinely a joy to read, and everything I could have asked for in a follow-up to "Lady's Guide" - which was the first romance novel I ever read, and set the bar so high for *all* novels that anything even remotely approaching this author's work gets 5 stars from me. So, naturally, "Care and Feeding" gets 5 stars from me as well, and I will be waiting with bated breath for book 3.

I quite enjoyed this story. When I first started reading it, I was a little worried that the main romance would be between Agatha and Eliza, and I'm glad I was proven wrong. (It had been a while since I had read the description). I really liked how Agatha and Penelope met, and became friends and eventually fell in love. It felt very organic. I disliked the villains quite a bit (as I was supposed to) and I was glad with how that plot line ended. I also appreciated the frank conversations between Agatha and her son about security in your business and revolution. Wanting to stay safe, so that you will still be able to print anything, wanting to participate in protests because that's how you feel. That was great to see that played out in the book. I wonder what the next book will be about?

Penelope Flood is a beekeeper whose husband is away at sea. Agatha Griffin is a widow who runs a print shop with her adult son. One day, Agatha finds a swarm of bees has infested her storage shelves and her mother-in-law advises her to enlist Mrs. Flood’s help. From there, they begin a friendship which turns into something more.

I feel like for the first half of the book, there wasn’t really anything going on. Agatha and Penelope were interacting, but it felt more like we were told that they had chemistry rather than seeing the chemistry. After that, there were quite a few subplots involving the king and queen, a lyricist who’s trapped in a bad marriage, a conflict with a Lady. It felt like there were all these plot lines, but it didn’t really… add to the story in my opinion. There are also a lot of things that kept coming up, but nothing ever happened with it. For example, there was a snuff box that was supposed to be given to Joanna Molesey from someone’s will, but Lady Summerville said she never found it. This kept coming up at least 3-4 times, but I don’t recall it ever being resolved? They never found it and they just stopped talking about it in the end, even though Joanna was pretty adamant about owning it.

However, the romance between Agatha and Penelope does have its cute moments. I liked the fact that it was slow burn and not much happened until way past half of the book lol. I don’t think I ever expected to read a romance between a beekeeper and a print shop owner, but honestly I’m not surprised haha.

I was given a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review of the story.

I LOVE THIS BOOK.

Great world building for a time long gone, a look into politics of the time that mirror today's concerns for women owning their destinies, , a life changing friendship , that fills you with hope.

Mrs. Griffin is a widow, past her prime at 45 years old.  She is, running a print business  in London and Melliton .  The print shop is doing well, they have steady work in  an uncertain political climate.  

Mrs. Flood is a woman of comfortable means in small town Melliton - her absentee husband and brother are whalers.  Mrs. Flood is the local bee expert.

The two women meet when a bee swarm is discovered in Mrs. Griffin's Melliton print shop.

They begin their relationship via correspondence -  a series of letters that changes Mrs. Griffins outlook - about bee keeping, politics, friendship, relationships.

If you enjoy a bit of history loosely woven through stories, seeing how politics of a few hundred years ago shaped our lives today, how gay people found a way to live and love - this book is for you!

Thank you to Netgalley and HarperCollins Publishers for the ARC of this book.

*sigh* Two books in, and Olivia Waite is becoming one of my favorite authors.

This book is the kind of lovely, soft story to read while you're wrapped up in a blanket, with the fireplace burning and a mug of hot chocolate in your hand. Yes, it's mainly a romance - a delightful one, at that - but it's also a tale of friendship, perseverance, and acceptance that hits home even today, two centuries after when this book takes place. As with her first book, Waite weaves in descriptions of the science and practices of the times, leaving one itching for a Wikipedia binge session.

Agatha and Penelope are both a wonderful mix of traditionally "masculine" and traditionally "feminine" traits. They allow each other to be wholly themselves - something they've both wanted for quite a while. It's so beautiful to read a story featuring middle-aged women with touches of gray in their hair, when most other romances feature Vogue-ready characters in the prime of their life. Can these two time-hop into 2020 adopt me?

This book was rather idealistic at times and thus probably not extremely accurate considering its Regency setting, but that's what makes for A+ escapist fiction. Plus there's enough drama and tension to satisfy lovers of angst.

*throws book into my "Favorites" pile*

A really lovely romance between two smart, interesting and strong women. I also like that they are in their 40s, and seem realistic--they aren't described as buxom or leggy or any of that. Not supermodels. What really makes this book special are the descriptions of beehives, beekeeping, and bee behavior in general. The author clearly knows quite a bit about those topics, and writes about them in a way that anyone can understand. I also loved the descriptions of printing and presses. It's a book with remarkable details that really makes it more than just sex scenes.

It's Pride month and what better way to celebrate than with a lesbian romance. This book was an absolute slow-burn delight. Both heroines were middle-aged which kept it from having the slight ick-factor of many lesbian romances in the media that feature large age gaps. The book was strongly feminist which I found perfect for 2020. Some might argue that a few things might have been a little too feminist for the time period, but they didn't really bother me. 

I really want to read the first book in the series. This book does not need the first book to be thoroughly enjoyed, I just want to want to read more cute lesbian romances. I love when I feel like I learn stuff when reading romance novels. In this book I learned about bees and Queen Caroline. My only slight complaint was that there were a lot of names and characters to keep track of. Of course the counter to this is that without those people the story may have felt a bit flat. Overall I really really enjoyed this book and would happily read any other book by Olivia Waite.

I loved The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics so much, and The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows is a worthy follow-up. I would even say this one is better. I love that Olivia Waite pays attention to middle-aged women in her works—so often these women are excluded from the romance genre altogether and especially from historical fiction. While the characters might be written as “spinsters” in other works, Waite puts them the center of her novel. I also love the attention paid to historical events, especially something like the Sedition Acts, which made such an impactful appearance in KJ Charles’s A Seditious Affair. Waite’s perspective helps flesh out how the time period might have affected women, too. Great slow burn read.

I was so excited to read this book! I adored The Ladies Guide to Celestial Mechanics and have been looking forward to this follow up for quite a while. I'm glad to say it didn't disappoint. I'm a sucker for reading about highly competent women and they permeate this book. I adored Agatha and Penelope. They both had deep passions that lent them complexity as individual characters and their romance was so lovely. I also loved the secondary characters - they rounded out the story and supplied some solid subplots that made the novel feel rich and real. I wasn't expecting the level of political discussion and of the time current events, but I love learning about historical moments I don't really know about! Overall, this was just such a wonderful read with a GLORIOUS bit at the end involving the bees that I don't want to spoil, but it's worth reading the whole book for that one scene.

Heat Factor: Slow, steady, burn.
Character Chemistry: So much pining! But also, believable BFFs. And they do that thing where they call each other by last name and I swoon every time. 
Plot: A year in the life of Flood and Griffin. 
Overall: The plot meanders but sometimes a book (even a romance) is more than a tight plot. I recommend reading this one. 

How many romance novels have I read that take place in 1820? The answer is: a lot. Follow up question. How did I not know that Queen Caroline was put on trial by the House of Lords for adultery in 1820? Look, I can understand why Regency romances might not want to cover bread riots or the Peterloo Massacre - the aristocrats of the time probably did their best to live in a bubble that did not include the poor or the industrial north - but the trial of the Queen was a Big Fucking Deal. 

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows, unlike most Regencies, is explicitly political. We not only get extensive discussion of the Queen’s trial, but also of the public demonstrations surrounding it and the concurrent government crackdown on the press and public meetings. Our heroines are intimately caught up in the events of the day, both personally and professionally. As a result, the story felt very historically grounded and managed to cover a broad range of topics without being sanctimonious. 

So that’s the framework. Within that framework, we have a wonderful, slow-burn, epistolary romance between two women in their 40s as they each begin a new phase in their respective lives. 

Agatha Griffin is an engraver, a widow, and the owner of Griffin’s Printing Press. She carries so much weight on her shoulders, as she worries about her livelihood, her employees, and her son (who would rather attend political meetings than take care of things at the press). She’s one of those women who just does everything herself so she knows that it gets done; I might have strongly identified with her. 

Our story begins when Agatha discovers a beehive in the storage room. Ack! Enter one Penelope Flood, quirky beekeeper. Of course, Agatha and Penelope are both immediately smitten and embarrassed about it. While they pine away, however, they also strike up a friendship, first by writing letters, and later, as they tramp around the countryside taking care of various beehives and drink beer at the local tavern and participate in demonstrations in London. 

As you might imagine based on what I’ve said so far, there are a lot of sideplots. There’s the central romance arc, where the conflict is predicated on both women assuming that the other woman is only interested in men and neither woman wanting to ruin a wonderful new friendship. (Penelope is married. Her husband serves on a whaling ship and is gone for years at a time. He is also her brother’s lover. It takes a while for Agatha to learn all of the pertinent information.) While most of the secondary conflicts are related to the political situation, there isn’t one central arc. Rather, there are several smaller arcs all related to themes of censorship (or self and others), justice, and government control. Penelope and the local magistrate have a series of increasingly escalating interactions as he clamps down on vice in the village. Agatha and her son butt heads over how far to push the envelop on printing political treatises. The end result is multi-faceted and thought-provoking, but if you prefer your smut tightly plotted and streamlined, this is probably not the book for you. 

PS: WHAT"S WITH THE COVER!?!? It's a gorgeous picture, but Agatha would never wear that yellow dress, and Penelope is supposed to be plump. And that power suit would not be useful for beekeeping; it looks like she's going to a board meeting. 


I voluntarily read and reviewed a complimentary copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own. We disclose this in accordance with 16 CFR §255.

This review is also available at The Smut Report. (Late July 2020)

Olivia Waite creates another winner in The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows, the story of an engraver who enters into a late-in-life romance with the town beekeeper.

London-based Agatha Griffin is an engraver and printer whose business is her life and whose public depends on her for accurate representations of current events.  It’s a business she inherited from her husband, Thomas, whom she still misses.  Sydney, her rabble-rousing nineteen-year-old son, is her eyes and ears on the streets of London, and the boy will someday take over the business, though she fears he will get himself in so much trouble agitating for the common people that he’ll be in jail before that happens.  But Sydney is a crusading journalist at heart, and less an engraver than a man of justice – thus Agatha takes on an apprentice, Eliza, whom Agatha secretly hopes will make a match for Sydney.

Penelope Flood, the wife of a sailor with whom she has a complex relationship, is the town’s resident beekeeper and a happy, trouser-wearing budding poet.  She is somewhat more jolly than the intense Agatha, and lives a happy independent life, but does miss the romance of being adored.

Agatha – who’s headed to a suburb outside of London to check on one of her warehouses – is startled to note it’s been invaded by bees.  She has to call Penelope in to remove the colony safely from the premises, and sparks begin to fly between them immediately.  Agatha finds herself taking more time off from her work to follow Penelope as she tends to the town’s hives, meeting the local populace and learning about bees and bee-related lore from Penelope.

Their acquaintanceship evolves into friendship, then into tentative romance.  But their lives are messy, busy and involved.  Will they find a second chance at love?

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows is even better than A Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics, my favorite book of last year.  While Lady’s Guide focused on the world of academia, here the story is about how the ordinary world of the women’s small village reacts to sudden political and social upheaval, and that makes all the difference.  Lady’s Guide felt more insular within its academic world; Waspish Widows thinks locally.

Agatha and Penelope meet against the backdrop of the Parliamentary divorce trial of George IV who is desperate to prevent his wife Caroline from becoming queen. Caroline was very much a queen in the hearts of the people, who disliked the adulterous George. The people in Agatha and Penelope’s small village of Mellinton are caught in the floodtide of seismic political change as George falls from favor and the British people revolt against his choice to divorce Caroline in favor of his mistresses. This makes a wonderful backdrop to their fight for rights both large-scale and small; it’s fun to hang around at tea and in taprooms with these folks.

There wasn’t anything I didn’t like about stiffly-formal-until-she-melts Agatha and salt-of-the-earth Penelope.  Their relationship develops with a sweet, wonderful slowness, with a pace that defines the words ‘slow burn’.

Again – this is a story about community, and you’re going to feel at home in the town of Mellinton right away.  There is an entire subplot revolving around erotic statuary extent in a back garden belonging to Agatha’s mother-in-law which offends the sensibilities of Agatha’s neighbors, and about a musician trapped in a marriage whose doggerel verse twitterpates the local preacher when Agatha prints them – and she prints political broadsides as well, making her an even bigger center of controversy. That doggerel writer (whose identity I will not divulge) and Agatha’s mother-in-law were my favorite minor characters.

I need to spare a word for the fierce Sydney and the wonderfully strong-minded Eliza, whose romance makes a fun side-dish to the carefully crafted main one of Agatha and Penelope’s.  There’s nothing better than watching two activists fall in love over similar passions.  I also loved Agatha and Sydney’s mother/son relationship – it’s nice to have a son in an f/f romance who’s supportive of his mother’s falling in love with someone new and isn’t nasty about it.

A quick note – while this is part of a continuing series and Catherine from Ladies’ Guide pops up for a cameo, this book can be read independently.  This may disappoint some readers, but I was too delighted with the people of Mellinton to care much about the lack of heavy cross-over.

The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows is touching, rousing, comforting, challenging and gladdening.  It’s a great read, an emotionally and romantically fulfilling banquet that will delight readers for years to come. I give it my highest recommendation.  Enjoy it with a cool glass of iced tea – sweetened with honey, of course.

Buy it at: Amazon, Audible, or your local independent bookstore
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