The Hive

A Novel of Sisters, Secrets, and Survival

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. The Fehlers provide a working-class lens on a messy family facing a recession. After the patriarchy’s sudden death, the sisters have to sort succession while they face medical bankruptcy. The strength of their hive is tested and each of the Fehler women must endure and overcome to survive.

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“How about a nice, new family drama with more than its share of comic spirit, marked by its Midwestern flavor? ‘The Hive‘ by Melissa Scholes Young.”
~Chicago Tribune

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“A captivating story…The Hive a novel worth reading.”
~Washington Independent Review of Books

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“Readers won’t easily forget the voices of the Fehler women.”
~Portland Book Review

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“I know a book is good when I wake up at 4am on a Sunday and pick up where I left off… a front row seat to the challenges women face in a small town in Midwest America.”
~Shelf Unbound

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"The Hive by Melissa Scholes Young is real and raw and will pin you back in your seat. It’s a powerful portrait of a family coming to terms with a changing world that some are ready for, and others are not. The Fehler family is beautifully rendered in their messy complexity—flawed, tragic, and hopeful, all at once. I loved it."
~Alex George, author of The Paris Hours, owner of Skylark Bookshop

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"The Hive is a rich and complex family narrative. Melissa Scholes Young gives us the story of a family-owned exterminator company and the family that runs it. Imperfect, real, and true-to-life characters are presented in a page-turning story line that book clubs will devour!"
~Mary Webber O'Malley, Skylark Bookshop

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“You’ll buzz through The Hive, Melissa Scholes Young’s vibrant second novel about a close family and their closely held secrets. In a small conservative town, where Mark Twain scholars abide with Rush Limbaugh followers, four daughters and their mother try to save the family’s exterminating business. Each yearns to be true to herself and the hive, as loyalty wrestles with self-discovery. A loving portrait of a family that closes ranks even as it opens its heart.”
~Mary Kay Zuravleff, author of Man Alive!

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"I love books about sisters, and I love The Hive, which has all the eccentricity and yearning of some of my favorite sister stories, like We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson and Sisters By a River by Barbara Comyns. From the very first chapter, The Hive is a deft, delightfully weird, and often comical family saga."
~Timothy Schaffert, author of The Perfume Thief

PRAISE for FLOOD

Winner of the Literary Fiction Category for the 2017 Best Book Award

“Young will leave readers thinking about their own flood of memories in this debut novel.” —Library Journal

“A wonderful story of home, hope, and the ties that bind us to family.” —Publishers Weekly

“Flood reflects America’s rural-urban divide, racism, empty-headed faith, willful ignorance, wheel-spinning, and marveling at distracting fireworks instead of the vast universe looming behind them. It’s more than a hillbilly elegy.” —Mark Twain Forum

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The Hive

A Novel of Sisters, Secrets, and Survival

ORDER NOW