On Writing The Hive
Dear Reader,
Political and 
personal struggles are rifting our hometowns, our communities, and our families. They are occurring on the dirt road I grew up on in rural Missouri near the banks of the Mississippi River and near the campus where I teach in Washington, D.C.
In my new novel, The Hive, The Fehler family endures similar threats and they must find what they have in common to rebuild the foundation that has been shattered. To survive, they must investigate their differences and consider the line between preparedness and paranoia. As research for the book, I attended Prepper Camp, a survivalist training weekend in North Carolina, and learned about the precarious crossover from fear that protects us to dangerous delusion that spurs violence. The queen bee of the Fehler family, Grace, travels in apocalyptic prepper circles and comes dangerously close to trading responsibility for romance.
Like the Fehler sisters, I was raised in a family pest control business in rural Missouri, but this is not my family’s story. I have brothers. My parents are happily retired and Dad fishes daily off a dock on the St. John’s River. I don’t write about the people in my life, but you’ll see their spirit on every page.
This is the complex Midwestern community that raised me; I’m proud to call them my own. I didn’t set out to write the familiar as fiction though. I wanted to tell the story of feminism rising from rural roots and to wrestle with the politics of family business succession. I intended to explore sudden grief and those left to pick up the pieces. My greatest hope for The Hive was to write characters with compassion and to welcome readers to homes they don’t occupy but with which they can empathize.
I have always wanted a sister. When I wrote the Fehler sisters in my new novel, The Hive, I imagined how their bond would be complicated and deep. Their griefs are common: the loss of their beloved patriarch, the financial threat to their family business, Midwestern political fear and resentment growing around them, and their absent mother who has her own agenda to save them all. But sisterhood endures.
Thank you for reading The Hive.
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Best wishes,
Melissa Scholes Young
Facebook: https://www.
THE HIVE
A story of survival, sisters, and secrets
The Fehler sisters wanted to be more than bug girls but growing up in a fourth- generation family pest control business in rural Missouri, their path was fixed. The family talked about Fehler Family Exterminating at every meal, even when their mom said to separate the business from the family, an impossible task. They tried to escape work with trips to their trailer camp on the Mississippi River, but the sisters did more fighting than fishing. If only there was a son to lead rural Missouri insect control and guide the way through a crumbling patriarchy.
After Robbie Fehler’s sudden death, the surprising details of succession in his will are revealed. He’s left the company to a distant cousin, assuming the women of the family aren’t capable. As the mother’s long-term affair surfaces and her apocalypse prepper training intensifies, she wants to trade responsibility for romance.
Facing an economic recession amidst the backdrop of growing Midwestern fear and resentment, the Fehler sisters unite in their struggle to save the company’s finances and the family’s future. To survive, they must overcome a political chasm that threatens a new civil war as the values that once united them now divide the very foundation they’ve built. Through alternating point-of-views, grief and regret gracefully give way to the enduring strength of the hive.
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Category: On Writing
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