"In 1942, America enters World War II. Maire, an Irish immigrant, marries Franklin, a young soldier deployed to Europe and into the North Africa campaign. Now pregnant and alone, she seeks refuge in her husband's small Montana town, disrupting the settled life of her widowed father-in-law, the local beekeeper and Methodist minister. When an estranged son returns home with a Blackfeet wife, the town splinters in racial tension, a scapegoat amid war-time pressure. While Montana boys are dying in faraway battles, a solitary figure stalks the countryside, threatening trauma and terror on the home front. Themes of love, loss, and belonging intersect in Maire. Now a young mother and apprentice to the hard work and magic of bees, she must dare to ask the questions that shape her family's destiny. An enduring saga of love across time and place, The Beekeeper's Question introduces characters whose determinatiopn to survive is the power that cuts through bigotry, family divisions, and the shattering traumas of war." -- Cover, page 4.