Of Lies and Honey
Donna Norman-Carbone
Red Adept Publishing (2024)
ISBN: 978-1958231463
Donna Norman-Carbone, the award-winning author of “All That is Sacred” and “Of Lies and Honey”, published by Red Adept Publishing, has a passion for writing women’s fiction that tugs at the heartstrings. Donna is also co-host of Authors Talking Bookish, a podcast for writers, and the program director for the Bookish Road Trip. Her writing affiliations include WFWA, CAPA and Authors Guild.
Donna is an English teacher in a small CT suburb, where she and her husband have raised three children, two Labrador retrievers and a Siamese cat. In her spare time, she enjoys reading a good book on a sunny Cape Cod beach (her happy place), spending quality time with family and friends and traveling overseas.
Hi Donna, welcome to Reader Views! What is Of Lies and Honey about, and what was your inspiration behind the story?
Thank you so much for this interview and for this award. I’m truly honored. The inspiration behind “Of Lies and Honey” came by way of an article I had read about a woman who, as a teenager and a debutante in high society, became pregnant. While she wanted to keep and raise the baby, her parents feared the stain it would put on her family name and forced her to give it up for adoption.
As the product of a teen pregnancy and a young mother myself, that story just stuck with me. And, as is often the case, I write to understand, so years later I decided to craft a story around the basic premise to understand what she might have gone through. In hindsight, I probably also wanted to understand what my own mother might have gone through as a teenager pregnant with me.
The title Of Lies and Honey is unforgettable. What’s the deeper meaning behind that pairing—what made you link deception and sweetness?
Thank you for that. Finding a title for this book was difficult. The first title, Lost and Found had already been used for a recent fiction publication. My next working title, Covenant House, simply did not seem to encapsulate the whole of the story. So, I brainstormed many titles and landed on this one. I think it reflects the juxtaposition in many choices that we are forced to make. There is always a positive and negative at work, and we try to find the balance.
Your story moves between timelines and towns in Georgia, touching lives connected by secrets. What drew you to this particular Southern backdrop?
I chose Georgia as the setting purely based on my research. Georgia has the longest history of debutante society. Since I’d only driven through Georgia once, I needed to do a deep dive into the geography and landscape of it. As is often the case with my settings, I pretended I was moving there to put myself in the mindset of research. I used realtor websites, Google Earth, visiting websites, and local publications to give me a sense of the culture and a lay of the land. While the towns I created are fictitious, they are based on some of my findings, and the two major cities I mention (Savannah and Atlanta), I kept intact as points of reference for the others.
The beekeeping thread runs through multiple generations. What do bees—and honey—represent for the women in your story?
Bees inherently represent reproduction. I interviewed my brother for this aspect of the novel, as he is a beekeeper. The more he talked about the Queen Bee and the colonies of bees, the more my wheels spun. With every novel I write, I try to find symbols that represent my characters or themes. The bee motif lent itself perfectly to three women struggling with aspects of motherhood in various ways. As such, each of the women has a very different connection to bees.
Callie, Harper, and Raina all face very different life circumstances, yet they’re linked in powerful ways. Did you always envision this kind of generational connection?
At first, this was Callie’s story, and there was so much more of her time at Covenant House, but as I revised the secondary characters (her daughters) took on lives of their own. They compelled me to develop them deeper and, ultimately, to give them their own voices in the novel.
Each woman’s relationship with her mother is layered and, in some cases, painful. What role does maternal influence—or pressure—play in shaping their decisions?
In my experience, the mother/daughter relationship has one of the most complex dynamics. There are so many nuances that I drew from personal experience and observation. I sought to represent the polarities and everything in between in order to make it connectable to any reader. Just as in life, I believe, our mothers play a huge role in the decisions we make about who we are (and aren’t), our desires and goals and behaviors.
One of the most heartbreaking arcs is Callie’s forced separation from her child. What made you want to explore that particular kind of loss?
This loss was always at the heart of this story. I wanted redemption for the woman and the daughter I had read about in that article so many years ago. I don’t know how their story turned out, but I’d like to believe they found some closure as Callie and Raina do.
Harper’s grief after the loss of her baby is palpable. How did you approach portraying the emotional weight of that trauma?
After three healthy pregnancies, I suffered a miscarriage. While it was early in the pregnancy, I was taken aback by the weight of the loss, one I’ve carried to this day. I don’t think that kind of loss is given the attention it deserves because it’s such a private one, experienced really only by the parents, and especially the mother. I wanted to honor that.
This book takes on big themes—motherhood, choice, grief, forgiveness. Was there a theme that emerged unexpectedly for you as you wrote?
What evolved from this story, for me, was the validation of the resilience of women and the choices they are faced with. We go through the thick of life and come out on the other side stronger and wiser.
Silence—what’s left unsaid between characters—is a recurring motif. Why was that an important device in telling this story?
Sometimes the silences are more telling than what we say. And, often, the silences point to where our regrets live. I wanted this aspect of life to be represented in this story.
There’s a quiet power in how the book questions what it means to be a “good mother.” How do you think each woman redefines that idea?
I believe most mothers strive to be “good” mothers, but we also hold ourselves to an unattainable standard. For Callie, I think being a good mother is accepting that she did the best she could with the cards she’d been given and, no matter what she had been dealt in her past, it didn’t define or limit her future. For Harper, it was the realization that not every woman wants to be a mother, and it doesn’t make her less than. Harper needed to learn to follow her own desires, not what someone else wanted or society dictated. Raina was the one who embodied the stereotypical characteristics of a “good” mother. She was called, by one of my critique partners, the “earth mama,” and I loved that description of her. Evelyn was the foil to Raina’s character; she was the one held back by her own past, which caused her decisions to be selfishly motivated.
Guilt lingers in the background of nearly every storyline. What did you want to say about guilt, especially when it’s internalized over time?
Guilt is a dangerous emotion, which is why it was so important for Callie to let go of the guilt surrounding her relationship with her mother. The same could be said of Harper and Raina.
Redemption comes in very different forms for these women. What does healing look like in the world of Of Lies and Honey?
Healing in Of Lies and Honey looks like being true to oneself, taking life one step at a time, and embracing the power of forgiveness (of others and of oneself).
How have readers responded to the emotional core of the novel? Have any reactions stuck with you?
I couldn’t be more grateful for the reaction to Of Lies and Honey. So many women have told me that I’d written their story, and they’ve trusted me enough to share personal details. It warms my heart to have provided a story and characters with whom readers can connect.
What conversations do you hope this story encourages among book clubs or families?
I honestly don’t think about the expectations surrounding conversations readers might have after reading my novel(s). I’ve developed this mindset that once I’ve finished revisions and the novel is complete, it’s in the hands and (hopefully) hearts of readers. It’s up to them to decide what their takeaways might be. I’m happy if they are, in fact, conversing about my novel because that means they’ve connected with it in some way.
What do you hope readers feel after finishing the final page?
While my novel tackles heavy topics, I hope at the end, readers feel good about where the characters end up—sort of like there’s always a light at the end of a tunnel.
What has this story meant to you personally, now that it’s out in the world?
Charles Dickens once described his novel as his children. I wholeheartedly feel that. Each of my novels becomes part of me. And just like letting children fly from the nest, releasing a novel brings a period of sadness followed by incredible pride.
What’s next for you? Are you working on another book?
My next novel is finished and I’ll be submitting it to my publisher soon. All fingers crossed that it goes under contract in the near future. In the meantime, I co-host the Authors Talking Bookish podcast for writers, so I plan on working on that in addition to beginning my next writing project.
CONNECT WITH DONNA NORMAN-CARBONE!
Website: www.donnanormancarbone.com & https://www.authorstalkingbookish.com
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