February 2026:

This is the second book by Lefteri, a university teacher of creative writing. She based it partly on her experience working as a volunteer for at a UNICEF supported refugee centre in Athens.

It follows a family from war torn Syria, through the eyes of Nuri (the husband) who is a beekeeper. They are reluctant to leave Aleppo until their young son is killed, his wife loses her sight and his bees are destroyed. They finally set out to find his cousin and fellow beekeeper in England.

It takes us through the traumatic experiences of their long journey. Nuri displays elements of confusion such as finding a child and then losing him in Athens. It is only later that we realized that this child a figment of his imagination caused by post-traumatic stress disorder.

Most of our readers felt the characters were believable although there was a lack of historical background to the Syrian war – it was felt that Nuri probably knew very little about the causes. The book illustrated extremes of behaviour among the characters and we found it thought provoking and an insight into a different world.