Katie Welch's debut novel Mad Honey weaves magical realism through a mystery inspired by the natural world

Katie Welch's debut novel,Mad Honey, fusesthe twists and turns of a gripping mystery with the heart of a family saga, all interspersed with a magical realism inspired by the natural world.

The story follows Melissa Makepeace, who's looking afterthe family farm amidst the disappearance of her boyfriend Beck Wise the second person to vanish from her life after her father also went missing when she was only 11.

But when Beck reappears three months later, he returns with the memory of having lived as wait for it a colony of bees. Trying to unravel this mystery ties into the ongoing questions over where Melissa's long-gone father went, with the narrative culminating in anunexpected plot twist.

Raised in Ottawa, Welch studied English at the University of Toronto before settling in Kamloops, B.C.,where she now writes fiction and teaches music. Welch spoke with CBC Books about how bees, music and a long-ago acid trip served as inspirationswhile writing her first novel.

Decade-long process

"There were many challenges along the way in writing this book. I had the original idea in 2012, so it's taken about a decade. Of course, I wasn't working on the book the whole time, but I probably finished the first draft in 2014 and then it kept going out and coming back to me; time seems to work reverse alchemy on manuscripts.

"On the strength of three chapters, though, I got to go to the Banff Centre in 2015 for the emerging writers' intensive. So that was extremely helpful by the end of that week, I realized I needed to rewrite it again.

"So it was back to the drawing board for another year. And then I had an editor at a major publishing house who was interested and had it for a year. So for an entire year, I didn't really look at it. And I thought, 'Well, I hope they like it hope to hear from them.' In the end, they didn't take it, but I got an editorial letter from them that was just amazing.

"That letter asked a very specific question about a character's whereabouts. And I realized that the ending I had could be a lot better, so I rewrote the ending based on that editorial letter."

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Hive mind

"My interest in bees started when I was 18 years old and a friend of mine invited me out to her family's cabin in Ontario, which is why I set the book there as well. Our plan was to drop acid and walk in the woods. At the height of it, she turned to me and said we should go look at her beehives.

"In retrospect, it could have gone spectacularly wrong. But instead, it was absolutely magical as you approach the beehive, the sound is amazing. It's sort of like the feeling you get from meditation or yoga. And as she opened the top, the bees rose up, but they didn't seem aggressive at all. In fact, if anything, they seemed welcoming at one point, a bee landed on her finger and then flew away. There seemed to be a golden line between the hive and where the bee flew to the flowers, and when I looked around, I could see this golden glow everywhere. That memory has lasted for decades.

What if someone could empathize so completely with another creature that you actually felt you had become that creature?

"When I first started writing Mad Honey in 2012, bee colony collapse disorder was in the headlines. I was really concerned about the bees I loved beehives and honey, and had aspirations to keep bees. So I thought, 'What if someone could empathize so completely with a bee colony if you could put your imagination into another creature so much that you actually felt you hadbecomethat creature?'

"And the more I thought about colony collapse disorder, I thought about how it's a very specific kind of disappearance the bees are there, and then they're gone. There's no little pile of corpses or sign of disease or anything. So I wanted to write a parallel human story about a person who had been ghosted sort of the human equivalent of that kind of disappearance. So that's where Melissa's story came from, with her father vanishing when she was 11."

An inadvertent mystery

"I did not set out to write a mystery. When it was classified as one afterwards, I was surprised but thought, 'Okay, apparently I can accidentally write a mystery!' I just wanted the reader to wonder whether Beck had actually turned into a bee colony, or if it was some kind of hallucination.

"I wanted a balance between science and spirituality so I gave Beck a scientific father who's logical and practical. And when he hears his son say he's 'been' a beehive, he says, 'We better get you completely medically examined.' And then he has a more spiritual mother, who isn't as closed off to the idea.

My favourite novels have those flabbergasting moments the twists that you didn't see coming, but then you later realize were plotted out all along.

"My favourite novels have those flabbergasting moments the twists that you didn't see coming, but then you later realize were plotted out all along. I really wanted to give my readers that experience. But prior to the editorial letter I received in 2016, the manuscript had a different ending. After that, I wanted the reader to wonder, 'Was it science? Or was it spirituality the whole time?' Then the final surprise was an 'aha!' moment one that came after the full manuscript had already been around for years."

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Write what you want to read

"When it comes to how descriptive the writing is, I think the wisdom that you're supposed to write the book you want to read applies here. Those are the kinds of books I enjoy I love having the scene painted for me almost cinematically. So I just wrote it the way I would want to read it.

"The biggest thing I've learned from writing novels is how to write a novel! I was really blundering my way through it at first. I'm not naturally a patient person. So that process of revision and the patience to put it in a drawer and come back to it later was really hard for me at every step of the way.

I think the wisdom that you're supposed to write the book you want to read applies hereI love having the scene painted for me almost cinematically.

"I initially felt like, 'This is ready to go.' And it wasn't, in terms of structuring the novel and writing character, all the way along. Through the revision process, I realized that there were things I would do differently to write another novel."

Creative synergy

"I absolutely think my musical side does influence my writing. I have a piano downstairs, and when I get stuck, I go down and play until my mind feels clear. And when I come back, I can continue writing and it's like a clean slate like pressing the reset button.

"As a music teacher, I'm always telling students to relax and get into the flow, even to the point of relaxing their mouth while they're practicing. And I'll do that when I'm writing when I'm tensing up, I remind myself to relax my whole body to get more into the flow of the story. So there's crossover between the two for sure.

"I'm ritualistic and disciplined. I like to get up early in the morning, make myself a coffee and have the time to write uninterrupted. I can't listen to music with any lyrics, but I often listen to music to blot out external sounds, so I'll have my earbuds in listening to jazz, usually which I spent, I don't know how many hours, listening to while writing this book."

Katie Welch's comments have been edited for length and clarity.