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Liepman Literary Agency
Marc Koralnik
Original language
English
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THE HONEY FARM

Harriet Alida Lye

For fans of Darren Aronfsky's Black Swan and readers of Kazuo Ishiguro's unnerving novel Never Let Me Go , THE HONEY FARM, by the talented Harriet Alida Lye is a psychological thriller about art, bees and love.
Lily King meets Patricia Highsmith in this slyly seductive debut set on an eerily beautiful farm teeming with secrets.

The drought has discontented the bees. Soil dries into sand; honeycomb stiffens into wax. But Cynthia knows how to breathe life back into her farm: offer it as an artists' colony with free room, board, and “life experience” in exchange for backbreaking labor. Silvia, a wide-eyed graduate and would-be poet, and Ibrahim, a painter distracted by constant inspiration, are drawn to Cynthia's offer, and soon, to each other.

But something lies beneath the surface. The edenic farm is plagued by events that strike Silvia as ominous: taps run red, scalps itch with lice, frogs swarm the pond. One by one, the other residents leave. As summer tenses into autumn, Cynthia's shadowed past is revealed and Silvia becomes increasingly paralyzed by doubt. Building to a shocking conclusion, THE HONEY FARM announces the arrival of a bold new voice and offers a thrilling portrait of creation and possession in the natural world.

Harriet Alida Lye is a writer from Richmond Hill, Ontario. She studied Philosophy and English at the University of King's College and lived in Paris for the better part of eight years, where she worked as a bookseller at Shakespeare & Company, an English teacher for the children of Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva, a storytelling researcher for Google, a painter's model, and various other jobs that kept her from completely starving as an artist. She founded and edited Her Royal Majesty, a literary arts magazine that ran for six years and 13 issues and published James Franco, Robert Hass, and the first-ever short story by Alice Munro. Her fiction, essays and reporting have been published by VICE, Hazlitt, Happy Reader, The Guardian, The National Post, and more. Harriet now lives in Toronto, and works at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection.
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Published by Vagrant Press

Comments

"An aura of mystery, faintly tinged with menace, permeates Canadian author Lye's sensuous debut...Lye offers an achingly lyrical excursion into a lost Eden."

“Lye evokes gothic tropes and an aura of foreboding that recall Shirley Jackson and Daphne du Maurier by way of the tortured Catholicism of Flannery O'Connor.”

Liveright (Summer 2018)

“Lush, poetic ...Each lyrical line feels like a gift left at the reader's altar. A honey-mouthed debut ruminating on creation, possession, and faith.”

Sonya Di Rienzo and Aeschylus Poulos of Hawkeye Pictures: Hawkeye Pictures is a producer of feature films, tv series, documentaries and digital content. Recent film credits include Sleeping Giant (Cannes Film Festival, Semaine de la Critique); Mary Goes Round (Toronto International Film Festival 2017); and 22 Chaser (2018). The latest project, Propaganda: The Art of Selling Lies, is currently in production. Read more...

"A Buzzworthy Debut About a Mysterious and Secluded Artists' Retreat...Reminiscent of an Agatha Christie mystery..." Read more...

“With a strong command of tone and a haunting sense of atmosphere, Lye's first novel will transfix readers. At times lyrical, biblical, and otherworldly, The Honey Farm is a suspenseful and well-crafted story.”