Elizabeth Evans

Twenty-five thousand species of bees certainly create a loud buzz. Yet silence descended a few years ago when domesticated bee populations plummeted. Bees, in particular honey bees, are critical links in the vibrant chain that brings fruits, vegetables, and nuts to markets and dinner tables across the country. Farmers and scientists on the agricultural frontlines quickly realized the impact of this loss, but many others did not see this devastation. Why Do Bees Buzz? reports on the mysterious "colony collapse disorder" that has affected honey bee populations, as well as other captivating topics, such as their complex, highly social lives, and how other species of bees are unique and different from honey bees. Organized in chapters that cover everything from these provocative pollinators' basic biology to the aggressive nature of killer bees, this insightful question and answer guide provides a honeycomb of compelling facts. With clarity and depth, bee biologist Elizabeth Capaldi Evans and coauthor Carol A. Butler examine the lives of honey bees, as well as other species such as orchid bees, bumblebees, and stingless bees. Accessible to readers on every level, and including the latest research and theory for the more sophisticated reader, the authors reveal more than one hundred critical answers to questions about the lives of bees. Concepts about speciation, evolutionary adaptation and pollination, as well as historical details about topics such as Mayan beekeeping and the appearance of bees in rock art, are arranged in easy-to-follow sidebars that highlight the text. Color and black and white photographs and drawings enhance the beauty and usefulness of Why Do Bees Buzz?

Elizabeth Evans traces the complex and often painful threads of human relationships in Suicide's Girlfriend, her most inspired work to date. In these richly textured stories, you'll meet: Oyekan, a confused young Nigerian student who wrestles with feelings his U. S. friends cannot understand. Marie, an adolescent who makes a carefully philosophized, end-of-the-rope stab at salvation for herself and her seven abused siblings. Jenny and Heather, two girls whose friendship has suffered from the distractions of adolescence and the cruelty of one moving on while the other must sit idly by and watch. A group of college boys, whose discovery of a dead body on the side of the road leaves one of them changed in ways he never thought possible. Elegant, acute, and engaging, Suicide's Girlfriend will introduce you to these characters and more, their stories, and an incredible new voice in fiction.

Pynch Lake is quiet nine months of the year but bursts into life each summer when the vacationers arrive. In the summer of 1965, year-round residents Harold and Peg Wahl find the world that once belonged to them is now being taken over by their older daughters, returned from college for the summer. Cool and self-possessed Rosamund is receiving the attention of the family friend who formerly courted Peg. Martie is filling the house with parties and houseguests of her own. No one in the family is paying much attention to the precocious thirteen-year-old Franny, who sets out to find a life of her own and, in the process, turns the Wahl family upside down. In rich and lyrical language, Elizabeth Evans, author of the critically acclaimed novels Carter Clay and The Blue Hour, has created both a profound meditation and a haunting story about the promises and betrayals of love. And in Franny Wahl, Evans has created one of the most memorable and endearing characters in recent fiction.

Drunk, and driving a van down a Florida highway, Carter Clay, a Vietnam vet at loose ends, irrevocably shatters the lives of the Altiz family, killing Joe and seriously injuring his wife, Katherine, and their daughter, Jersey, in a hit-and-run accident. Horrified, Clay seeks redemption, while still concealing his culpability, by becoming the questionable caretaker of the two survivors' damaged lives--eventually imposing upon them the baggage of his past and his haphazard faith in God. Suspenseful, psychologically complex, and inhabited by characters that will haunt your memory long after you have turned the last page, Carter Clay is a finely wrought tale of the frailty of identity and the possibility of redemption.