A Swarming of Bees cover art

A Swarming of Bees

Fridgyth the Herb-Wife, Book 1

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A Swarming of Bees

By: Theresa Tomlinson
Narrated by: Danielle Cohen
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About this listen

"A herb-wife on a mule may go where warriors cannot - she may see what warriors cannot see and hear what warriors cannot hear!”

The Monastery at Whitby is ruled over by the powerful and independent Abbess Hild. But when she needs someone to confide in, she turns to the honest warmth of her friend Fridgyth, the half-pagan herb-wife.

A divisive and life-altering decision taken at the Great Synod is swiftly overshadowed as the monastery is ravaged by a deadly plague. As she tends the sick, Fridgyth starts to suspect that not all the deaths are natural. Despite Hild's stern warnings "not to meddle" she sets out to investigate.

Can Fridgyth's wisdom and intuition unmask the murderer and unravel the dark politics surrounding the deaths and clandestine arrival of two young scholars?

©2012 Theresa Tomlinson (P)2020 Tantor Historical Mystery Warrior

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An enjoyable and engaging listen that takes you through early Christianity among pagan believers and weaves a good mystery in amongst early experiences of the plague.

Involving story

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While it is an easy listen I wouldn't recommend. There are too many names and potential too many characters although I did lose track of who was who. The mystery was very basic and was obvious. After the mystery was solved I did wonder what would fill up the rest of the book approx a third and it's just filler. This could have been a short story.

Over Long

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Narrator was great and story had an interesting historical backdrop
Look forward to more in this series.

Loved the narration and pace of this story.

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a pretty good story overall. I've no idea how accurate most of the detail is but Linnaeus method of classifying organisms was about 1000 years after this was meant to be set! overlooking this, was a good story but I won't be buying the next one.

needs to do more research

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The attention to historical detail was excellent and handled well, woven into the tale and gently delivered as part of the story.
Good characters, but perhaps the changes of names could have been better handled? This was a wee bit confusing at times. It became clearer as you read on but was muddled at the start.
Sometimes the plot felt a bit slow, and this needs tightening up before the next instalment but the Herb Woman and Mother Hilde are a great addition to historical mystery fiction.

Enjoyable Read

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what excellent research went into this novel! I love this period of history and it's so much fun to find it about it through well-researched fiction like this. The herb -wife is such an interesting main character, linking the old beliefs to the new Christian god of the abbey.
Very good narration, with a good pace and lively intonation. The story is engaging and within its historical context - which is actually really difficult as it is so 'limited' compared to what narrative resources are available in our time period. Really, really enjoyed this!

Excellent historical mystery

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A “listen before falling asleep” book. Narration was rather annoyingly cloying. Shame, cause there was so much scope for character development especially given the historical period but unfortunately this didn’t happen.

Mediocre

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Told fro an unusual point of view, and woven around factual material, this was an interesting listen.

Well researched historical tale

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I was going to give up on this book after a few minutes but am so glad that I stuck with it. Loved this story

Great Historical Mystery

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I liked listening to this book not just for the story but for the history of the era it contains..

worth the read or listen

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