SUE MONK KIDD. Viking, $24.95 (320p) ISBN 0-670-894960-5 Honey-sweet but never cloying, this debut by nonfiction author Kidd (The Dance of the Dissident Daughter) features a hive's worth of appealing female characters, an offbeat plot and a lovely style. It's 1964, the...

By Sue Monk Kidd. Viking, 303 pp., $24.95. TEN YEARS AGO Sue Monk Kidd was a traditionally grounded Christian writer. But like her engaging narrator Lily Owens, Kidd is on a spiritual journey, heralded by her 1996 nonfiction work The Dance of...

Babies have bad taste in music.On the weekends, certain Manhattan women go around in funny shoes that look like a mixture of hiking boot, slipper and something a French schoolboy would wear. When I jog, I go too slow to make a breeze. That New...

Reviews The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd. Analyzes the civil rights theme in the novel. Discusses race issues in the American South during the 1960s.

Reviews The Secret Life of Bees, a novel by Sue Monk Kidd. It covers the plot, a brief analysis of the main character, and main character Lily's growth throughout the book.

The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd, is a tale of a young girl's adventure in finding the truth about her mother's death. Helping her solve this mystery are three women who befriend her and help her place the pieces together to solve the puzzle. This novel is not only about a girl living her life with a blurred memory of her mother's killing, but about self-discovery and the power of women.