Set in South Carolina during the summer of 1964, The Secret Life of Bees tells the story of Lily Owens, whose life has been shaped around the blurred memory of the afternoon her mother was killed. When Lily's fierce-hearted "stand-in mother," Rosaleen, insults three racists in town, they escape to Tiburon, South Carolina--a town that holds the secret to her mother's past. Taken in by an eccentric trio of black beekeeping sisters, Lily finds refuge...

Fourteen-year-old Lily Owens lost her beloved mother when she was only four under tragic circumstances clouded by time and secrecy. Later, she found a fiercely protective surrogate in her abusive father's outspoken housekeeper, Rosaleen. Ignoring differences in age and color as well as the racial hatred that seethed during the summer of 1964 in rural South Carolina, these two unlikely companions set off on a seemingly aimless pilgrimage.