Search
Log in
  • Home

  • Categories

  • Audiobooks

  • E-books

  • Magazines

  • For kids

  • Top lists

  • Help

  • Download app

  • Use campaign code

  • Redeem gift card

  • Try free now
  • Log in
  • Language

    🇫🇷 France

    • FR
    • EN

    🇧🇪 Belgique

    • FR
    • EN

    🇩🇰 Danmark

    • DK
    • EN

    🇩🇪 Deutschland

    • DE
    • EN

    🇪🇸 España

    • ES
    • EN

    🇳🇱 Nederland

    • NL
    • EN

    🇳🇴 Norge

    • NO
    • EN

    🇦🇹 Österreich

    • AT
    • EN

    🇨🇭 Schweiz

    • DE
    • EN

    🇫🇮 Suomi

    • FI
    • EN

    🇸🇪 Sverige

    • SE
    • EN
  1. Books
  2. Fiction
  3. Contemporary fiction

Read and listen for free for 30 days!

Cancel anytime

Try free now
4.0(18)

The Bees

Shortlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction 2015

Longlisted for the Desmond Elliott Prize for New Fiction 2015

Enter a whole new world, in this thrilling debut novel set entirely within a beehive.

Born into the lowest class of her society, Flora 717 is a sanitation bee, only fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to accept, obey and serve, she is prepared to sacrifice everything for her beloved holy mother, the Queen.

But Flora is not like other bees. Despite her ugliness she has talents that are not typical of her kin. While mutant bees are usually instantly destroyed, Flora is removed from sanitation duty and is allowed to feed the newborns, before becoming a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. She also finds her way into the Queen’s inner sanctum, where she discovers secrets both sublime and ominous.

But enemies are everywhere, from the fearsome fertility police to the high priestesses who jealously guard the Hive Mind. And when Flora breaks the most sacred law of all her instinct to serve is overshadowed by an even deeper desire, a fierce love that will lead to the unthinkable . . .

Laline Paull’s chilling yet ultimately triumphant novel creates a luminous world both alien and uncannily familiar. Thrilling and imaginative, ‘The Bees’ is the story of a heroine who, in the face of an increasingly desperate struggle for survival, changes her destiny and her world.


Author:

  • Laline Paull

Narrator:

  • Orlagh Cassidy

Format:

  • Audiobook

Duration:

  • 10 h 17 min

Language:

English

Categories:

  • Fiction
  • Contemporary fiction

More by Laline Paull

Skip the list
  1. The Ice

    Laline Paull

    audiobook
  2. The Bees : A Novel

    Laline Paull

    audiobook

Others have also read

Skip the list
  1. Aliell - Tome 5 : Au cœur de terre-mère

    Danielle Simonin

    book
  2. Véra

    Auguste de Villiers de l'Isle-Adam

    audiobook
  3. Contes pour jeunes filles intrépides : des quatre coins du monde

    Praline Gay-Para

    audiobook
  4. Watership Down : A Novel

    Richard Adams

    book
  5. Things We Lost in the Fire : Stories

    Mariana Enriquez

    audiobook
  6. 12 Nouvelles Fantastiques Du 19ème Siècle

    Auguste Villiers de l'Isle Adam, Jules Verne, Prosper Mérimée, Erckmann Chatrian, Théophile Gautier, Guy de Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, Nicolai Gogol, Alexandre Pouchkine, Washinton Irving, Henry James

    book
  7. Indiana

    George Sand

    book
  8. Les Métamorphoses

    Ovide

    book
  9. Les Métamorphoses

    . Ovide

    book
  10. Dr Jekyll et Mr Hyde

    Robert Louis Stevenson

    audiobook
  11. Pétronille

    Amélie Nothomb

    audiobook
  12. Lettre au père

    Franz Kafka

    audiobookbook

  • 3 books

    Laline Paull

    Laline Paull was born in England. Her parents were first-generation Indian immigrants. She studied English at Oxford, screenwriting in Los Angeles, and theatre in London, where she has had two plays performed at the Royal National Theatre. She is a member of BAFTA and the Writers’ Guild of America. She lives in England by the sea with her husband, the photographer Adrian Peacock, and their three children. ‘The Bees’ received wide critical praise and was chosen as an Amazon Rising Star.

    Read more

Help and contact


About us

  • Our story
  • Career
  • Press
  • Accessibility
  • Nextory One
  • Partner with us
  • Investor relations
  • Instagram
  • Facebook

Explore

  • Categories
  • Audiobooks
  • E-books
  • Magazines
  • For kids
  • Top lists

Popular categories

  • Crime
  • Biographies and reportage
  • Fiction
  • Feel-good and romance
  • Personal development
  • Children's books
  • True stories
  • Sleep and relaxation

Nextory

Copyright © 2025 Nextory AB

Privacy Policy · Terms · Legal notices ·
Excellent4.3 out of 5