Skip to main content
mad honey on sale now
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan
Mad Honey by Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan

Mad Honey

Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Finney Boylan

"Good Morning America” Book Club pick for October.

A soul-stirring novel about what we choose to keep from our past and what we choose to leave behind, from the New York Times bestselling author of Wish You Were Here and the bestselling author of She’s Not There.

Signed Copies

Get a signed copy from one of the participating bookstores below.

We recommend confirming your order for a signed copy directly with the store either in person, on the phone, or via email.

If you do not see a bookstore near you, many of these stores ship across the United States. Please contact a store directly to see if they are able to ship to you.

If you have questions about your order,  please contact the bookseller directly.

Other questions can be directed to MadHoneyPreorder@PRH.com.

Signed copies are available while supplies last.


ALABAMA 

ALABAMA BOOKSMITH | SOUTH HOMEWOOD, AL
signedbooks@alabamabooksmith.com
205-870-4242

BOOKSHOP | SOUTH HOMEWOOD, AL
205-870-7461

THE SNAIL ON THE WALL | HUNTSVILLE, AL
256-508-9093

ARIZONA

BRIGHT SIDE BOOKSHOP | FLAGSTAFF, AZ
928-440-5041

CHANGING HANDS BOOKSTORE | PHOENIX, AZ
602-274-0067

CHANGING HANDS BOOKSTORE | TEMPE, AZ
480-730-0205

MOSTLY BOOKS | TUCSON, AZ
520-571-0110

CALIFORNIA

MONARCH BOOKS | ARROYO GRANDE, CA
805-668-6300

COLORADO

MARIA’S BOOKSHOP | DURANGO, CO
books@mariasbookshop.com
970-247-1438

CONNECTICUT 

BANK SQUARE BOOKS | MYSTIC, CT
860-536-3795

RIVER BEND BOOKSHOP | GLASTONBURY, CT
860-430-6608

RJ JULIA BOOKSELLERS | MADISON, CT
203-245-3959

WESLEYAN RJ JULIA BOOKSTORE | MIDDLETOWN, CT
860-685-3939

DELAWARE

BETHANY BEACH BOOKS | BETHANY BEACH, DE
302-539-2522

THE BOOK DROP | SELBYVILLE, DE
302-775-4091

FLORIDA

SAN MARCO BOOKSTORE | JACKSONVILLE, FL
904-396-7597

GEORGIA

E. SHAVER BOOKSELLER | SAVANNAH, GA
912-234-7257

RIGHTON BOOKS | ST SIMONS ISLAND, GA
Please call the store directly to place your order: 912-771-0808

IDAHO

REDISCOVERED BOOKS | BOISE, ID
208-376-4229


IOWA

BEAVERDALE BOOKS | DES MOINES, IA
beaverdalebooks@gmail.com
515-279-5400

DRAGONFLY BOOKS | DECORAH, IA
orders@dragonflybooks.com
563-382-4275

ILLINOIS

BOOK BIN | NORTHBROOK, IL
847-498-4999

MADISON STREET BOOKS | CHICAGO, IL
books@madstreetbooks.com
312-929-4140


INDIANA

VIEWPOINT BOOKS | COLUMBUS, IN 
812-376-0778

KENTUCKY

CARMICHAEL’S BOOKSTORE | LOUSVILLE, KY (Frankfort Ave.)
502-896-6950

CARMICHAEL’S BOOKSTORE | LOUSVILLE, KT (Bardstown Rd.)
502-456-6950

LOUISIANA

CAVALIER HOUSE | DENHAM SPRINGS, LA
225-664-2255

MAINE

DEVANEY DOAK & GARRETT BOOKSELLERS | FARMINGTON, ME
207-778-3454

SHERMAN'S OF BAR HARBOR | BAR HARBOR, ME
207-288-3161

SHERMAN'S OF BOOTHBAY HARBOR | BOOTHBAY HARBOR, ME
207-633-72

SHERMAN'S OF DAMARISCOTTA | DAMARISCOTTA, ME
207-563-3207

SHERMAN'S OF FALMOUTH | FALMOUTH, ME
207-781-4808

SHERMAN'S OF FREEPORT | FREEPORT, ME
207-869-9000

SHERMAN'S OF PORTLAND | PORTLAND, ME
207-773-4100

SHERMAN'S OF ROCKLAND | ROCKLAND, ME
207-420-8210

SHERMAN'S OF TOPSHAM | TOPSHAM, ME
207-805-2500

SHERMAN'S OF WINDHAM | WINDHAM, ME
207-857-7111

MARYLAND

A LIKELY STORY BOOKSTORE | SYKESVILLE, MD
410-795-1718

MASSACHUSETTS 

BELMONT BOOKS | BELMONT, MA
617-932-1496


BOOKENDS WINCHESTER | WINCHESTER, MA
781-721-5933

BUTTONWOOD BOOKS AND TOYS | COHASSET, MA
781-721-5933

EDGARTOWN BOOKS | EDGARTOWN, MA
781-383-2665

JABBERWOCKY BOOKSHOP | NEWBURYPORT, MA
978-465-9359

PORTER SQUARE BOOKS, INC. | CAMBRIDGE, MA
617-491-2220

TATNUCK BOOKSELLERS | WESTBOROUGH, MA
discovertatnuck@tatnuck.com
508-366-4959

WELLESLEY BOOKS | WELLESLEY, MA
781-431-1160

MICHIGAN

BRILLIANT BOOKS | TRAVERSE CITY, MI
231-946-2665

MINNESOTA

MOON PALACE BOOKS | MINNEAPOLIS, MN
612-454-0455

MISSISSIPPI

SQUARE BOOKS | OXFORD MS
662-236-2262

TURNROW BOOK CO | GREENWOOD, MS
662-453-5995

MISSOURI

NEIGHBORHOOD READS | WASHINGTON, MO
636-390-9673

NEW HAMPSHIRE

GIBSON'S BOOKSTORE | CONCORD, NH
603-224-0562

THE COUNTRY BOOKSELLER |WOLFEBORO, NH
603-569-6030

THE TOADSTOOL BOOKSHOP | KEENE, NH
603-352-8815

NEW JERSEY

THUNDER ROAD BOOKS | SPRING LAKE, NJ
973-436-0914

NEW YORK

BOOK HOUSE OF STUYVESANT PLAZA | ALBANY, NY
518-489-4761

OBLONG BOOKS | MILLERTON, NY
518-789-3797

RED JACKET BOOKS | WESTHAMPTON, NY
ben@redjacketbooks.com
631-533-5580

SCATTERED BOOKS | CHAPPAQUA, NY
info@scatteredbooks.com
914-529-8013

TALKING LEAVES...BOOKS | BUFFALO, NY
talkingleaveselmwood@gmail.com
716-884-9524

THE BOOKMARK SHOPPE | BROOKLYN, NY
718-833-5115

THE DOG EARED BOOK | PALMYRA, NY
books@thedogearedbook.com
315-502-0181

THEODORE'S BOOKS | OYSTER BAY, NY
info@theodoresbooks.com
516-636-5550

NORTH CAROLINA

PAGE 158 BOOKS | WAKE FOREST, NC
919-435-1843

OHIO

THE BOOK LOFT OF GERMAN VILLAGE | COLUMBUS, OH
614-464-1774

THE LEARNED OWL BOOKSHOP | HUDSON, OH
330-653-2252

OKLAHOMA

BEST OF BOOKS | EDMOND, OK
405-340-9202

OREGON

ANNIE BLOOM'S BOOKS | PORTLAND, OR
503-246-0053

BROADWAY BOOKS | PORTLAND, OR
503-284-1726

OREGON BOOKS & GAMES | GRANTS PASS, OR
541-476-3132

PENNSYLVANIA

MAIN POINT BOOKS | WAYNE, PA
staff.mainpointbooks@gmail.com
484-580-6978

MIDTOWN SCHOLAR BOOKSTORE | HARRISBURG, PA
717-236-1680

NEWTOWN BOOKSHOP | NEWTOWN, PA
215-968-2400

PRESSED | ERIE, PA
pressedinfo@pressedbooks.com
814-314-2827

THE DOYLESTOWN & LAHASKA BOOKSHOPS | DOYLESTOWN, PA
215-230-7610

RHODE ISLAND

CHARTER BOOKS | NEWPORT, RI
401-236-8678

SAVOY BOOKSHOP & CAFE | WESTERLY, RI
401-213-3901

SOUTH CAROLINA

BUXTON BOOKS | CHARLESTON, SC
hello@buxtonbooks.com
843-723-1760

FICTION ADDICTION | GREENVILLE, SC
864-675-0540

ITINERANT LITERATE BOOKS | NORTH CHARLESTON, SC
843-225-6569

TENNESSEE

NOVEL | MEMPHIS, TN
901-922-5526

PARNASSUS BOOKS | NASHVILLE, TN
615-953-2243

TEXAS

BOOKPEOPLE | AUSTIN, TX
512-472-5050

BUY THE BOOK | THE WOODLANDS, TX
832-732-5164

LARK & OWL BOOKSELLERS | GEORGETOWN, TX
Please email the store to place your order at salesfloor@larkandowlbooksellers.com
512-688-5582

NOWHERE BOOKSHOP | SAN ANTONIO, TX
210-640-7260

UTAH

THE KING'S ENGLISH BOOKSHOP | SALT LAKE CITY, UT
801-484-9100

VERMONT

PHOENIX BOOKS BURLINGTON | BURLINGTON, VT
802-448-3350

PHOENIX BOOKS ESSEX | ESSEX JUNCTION, VT
802-872-7111

PHOENIX BOOKS RUTLAND | RUTLAND,
802-855-8078

THE NORWICH BOOKSTORE | NORWICH, VT
802-649-1114

VERMONT BOOK SHOP | MIDDLEBURY, VT
orders@vermontbookshop.com
802-388-2061

VILLAGE SQUARE BOOKSELLERS | BELLOW FALLS, VT
info@villagesquarebooks.com
802-463-9404

VIRGINIA

HOORAY FOR BOOKS! | ALEXANDRIA, VA
ellen@hooray4books.com
703-548-4092

OLD TOWN BOOKS |  ALEXANDRIA, VA
703-647-9749

WASHINGTON

VINTAGE BOOKS | VANCOUVER, WA
360-694-9519

WISCONSIN

KISMET BOOKS | VERONA, WI
608-845-2500

MYSTERY TO ME | MADISON, WI
608-283-9332

Read an Excerpt

OLIVIA 1

DECEMBER 7, 2018

The day of

From the moment I knew I was having a baby, I wanted it to be a girl. I wandered the aisles of department stores, touching doll-size dresses and tiny sequined shoes. I pictured us with matching nail polish—me, who’d never had a manicure in my life. I imagined the day her fairy hair was long enough to capture in pigtails, her nose pressed to the glass of a school bus window; I saw her first crush, prom dress, heartbreak. Each vision was a bead on a rosary of future memories; I prayed daily.

As it turned out, I was not a zealot . . . only a martyr.

When I gave birth, and the doctor announced the baby’s sex, I did not believe it at first. I had done such a stellar job of convincing myself of what I wanted that I completely forgot what I needed. But when I held Asher, slippery as a minnow, I was relieved.

Better to have a boy, who would never be someone’s victim.

MOST PEOPLE IN Adams, New Hampshire, know me by name, and those who don’t, know to steer clear of my home. It’s often that way for beekeepers—like firefighters, we willingly put ourselves into situations that are the stuff of others’ nightmares. Honeybees are far less vindictive than their yellow jacket cousins, but people can’t often tell the difference, so anything that stings and buzzes comes to be seen as a potential hazard. A few hundred yards past the antique Cape, my colonies form a semicircular rainbow of hives, and most of the spring and summer the bees zip between them and the acres of blossoms they pollinate, humming a warning.

I grew up on a small farm that had been in my father’s family for generations: an apple orchard that, in the fall, sold cider and donuts made by my mother and, in the summer, had pick-your-own strawberry fields. We were land-rich and cash-poor. My father was an apiarist by hobby, as was his father before him, and so on, all the way back to the first McAfee who was an original settler of Adams. It is just far enough away from the White Mountain National Forest to have affordable real estate. The town has one traffic light, one bar, one diner, a post office, a town green that used to be a communal sheep grazing area, and Slade Brook—a creek whose name was misprinted in a 1789 geological survey map, but which stuck. Slate Brook, as it should have been written, was named for the eponymous rock mined from its banks, which was shipped far and wide to become tombstones. Slade was the surname of the local undertaker and village drunk, who had a tendency to wander off when he was on a bender, and who ironically killed by drowning in six inches of water in the creek.

When I first brought Braden to meet my parents, I told him that story. He had been driving at the time; his grin flashed like lightning. But who, he’d asked, buried the undertaker?

Back then, we had been living outside of DC, where Braden was a resident in cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins and I worked at the National Zoo, trying to cobble together enough money for a graduate program in zoology. We’d only been together three months, but I had already moved in with him. We were visiting my parents that weekend because I knew, viscerally, that Braden Fields was the one.

On that first trip back home, I had been so sure of what my future would hold. I was wrong on all counts. I never expected to be an apiarist like my father; I never thought I’d wind up sleeping in my childhood bedroom once again as an adult; I never imagined I’d settle down on a farm my older brother, Jordan, and I once could not wait to leave. I married Braden; he got a fellowship at Mass General;we moved to Boston; I was a doctor’s wife. Then, almost a year to the day of my wedding anniversary, my father didn’t come home one evening after checking his hives. My mother found him, dead of a heart attack in the tall grass, bees haloing his head.

My mother sold the piece of land that held our apple orchard to a couple from Brooklyn. She kept the strawberry fields but was thoroughly at a loss when it came to my father’s hives. Since my brother was busy with a high-powered legal career and my mother was allergic to bees, the apiary fell to me. For five years, I drove from Boston to Adams every week to take care of the colonies. After Asher was born, I’d bring him with me, leaving him in the company of my mother while I checked the hives. I fell in love with beekeeping, the slow-motion flow of pulling a frame out of a hive, the Where’s Waldo? search for the queen. I expanded from five colonies to fifteen. I experimented with bee genetics with colonies from Russia, from Slovenia, from Italy. I signed pollination contracts with the Brooklynites and three other local fruit orchards, setting up new hives on their premises. I harvested, processed, and sold honey and beeswax products at farmers’ markets from the Canadian border to the suburbs of Massachusetts. I became, almost by accident, the first commercially successful beekeeper in the history of apiarist McAfees. By the time Asher and I moved permanently to Adams, I knew I might never get rich doing this, but I could make a living.

My father taught me that beekeeping is both a burden and a privilege. You don’t bother the bees unless they need your help, and you help them when they need it. It’s a feudal relationship: protection in return for a percentage of the fruits of their labors.

He taught me that if a body is easily crushed, it develops a weapon to prevent that from happening.

He taught me that sudden movements get you stung.

I took these lessons a bit too much to heart.

On the day of my father’s funeral, and years later, on the day of my mother’s, I told the bees. It’s an old tradition to inform them of a death in the family; if a beekeeper dies, and the bees aren’t asked to stay on with their new master, they’ll leave. In New Hampshire, the custom is to sing, and the news has to rhyme. So I draped each colony with black crepe, knocked softly, crooned the truth. My beekeeping net became a funeral veil. The hive might well have been a coffin.

Praise

Praise for Jodi Picoult

“Picoult is a skilled wordsmith, and she beautifully creates situations that not only provoke the mind but touch the flawed souls in all of us.”—The Boston Globe

“Jodi Picoult is that rare, one-in-a-million writer whose books both squeeze your heart and expand your mind.”⁠—Emily Henry

Praise for Jennifer Finney Boylan

“Jennifer Finney Boylan is an exquisite writer.”—Augusten Burroughs

“One could not ask for a wiser, warmer, more engaging companion than Jennifer Finney Boylan.”—Mary Roach

The Authors

Jodi Picoult
Photo: © Tim Llewellyn

Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-eight novels, including Wish You Were Here, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, and My Sister’s Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page. Picoult lives in New Hampshire.

Jennifer Finney Boylan
Photo: © Jim Bowdoin

Jennifer Finney Boylan

Jennifer Finney Boylan is the bestselling author of more than a dozen books. She is the inaugural Anna Quindlen Writer-in-Residence at Barnard College of Columbia University and a 2022–2023 Fellow at Harvard University’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study. A nationally known advocate for human rights, she is a trustee of PEN America. For many years she was the national co-chair of GLAAD as well as a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times. She lives in New York City and Belgrade Lakes, Maine, with her wife, Deedie. They have a son, Sean, and a daughter, Zai.

Stay in Touch

Sign me up for news from Random House.
And also:

By clicking Sign Up, I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Penguin Random House's Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and understand that Penguin Random House collects certain categories of personal information for the purposes listed in that policy, discloses, sells, or shares certain personal information and retains personal information in accordance with the policy. You can opt-out of the sale or sharing of personal information anytime.

mad honey lifestyle photo
Back to top