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A review by brennasherrill
The Honeybee Emeralds by Amy Tector
3.0
This hunt for the story behind an accidentally-uncovered valuable necklace was a lot of fun. I was eager to unravel the mystery along with the journalists and historians doing the research to learn more about it, and I enjoyed the infusion of historical moments when we got to see the previous owners of the necklace through time.
I did find, though, that the story went on a bit long for me, and I think many of the issues I had come down to this being a debut novel. I often felt like Tector (like many first-time novelists do) was trying to infuse a few too many elements into one book, so there were too many asides—we don't just have the history (and history of the necklace), but stuff about theatre history, The Monuments Men (the movie, which was weird), baking, and fantasy novels not being considered "real" literature. I think this is the kind of stuff that happens when an author wants to infuse all the stuff they care/know about in their writing, but it just doesn't really all need to be in one book.
On that same note, I also had trouble early on with the large ensemble of characters, maybe more so because I read this on audio. It took me a while to distinguish characters (and continued to struggle throughout). I never really bought the friendship between Daphne and Lily, I didn't get why Alice was so obsessed with visiting the necklace constantly, and eventually became frustrated with some of these (and the other) B-plot conflicts. Again, I think these are problems that come from having a large cast of characters and wanting to provide them all with rich lives, but I don't think they all really needed it, and it starts to feel too full at some point.
Despite my problems with some of these smaller issues, though, I really did enjoy the central mystery, and I would read more by Tector in the future.
I did find, though, that the story went on a bit long for me, and I think many of the issues I had come down to this being a debut novel. I often felt like Tector (like many first-time novelists do) was trying to infuse a few too many elements into one book, so there were too many asides—we don't just have the history (and history of the necklace), but stuff about theatre history, The Monuments Men (the movie, which was weird), baking, and fantasy novels not being considered "real" literature. I think this is the kind of stuff that happens when an author wants to infuse all the stuff they care/know about in their writing, but it just doesn't really all need to be in one book.
On that same note, I also had trouble early on with the large ensemble of characters, maybe more so because I read this on audio. It took me a while to distinguish characters (and continued to struggle throughout). I never really bought the friendship between Daphne and Lily, I didn't get why Alice was so obsessed with visiting the necklace constantly, and eventually became frustrated with some of these (and the other) B-plot conflicts. Again, I think these are problems that come from having a large cast of characters and wanting to provide them all with rich lives, but I don't think they all really needed it, and it starts to feel too full at some point.
Despite my problems with some of these smaller issues, though, I really did enjoy the central mystery, and I would read more by Tector in the future.