The novel, the Secret Life of Bees regards a fourteen-year-old adolescent named Lily, who had lost her mother when she was nearly a toddler. It takes place in the Southern States around the mid-1960's where colored folk were customarily considered the lower class. Lily's personal desire is to discover who her mother truly was. Her father, T. Ray, has always opposed Lily uncovering her mother and her many secrets that she left behind. Finally T. Ray reveals to Lily that she had been the cause of her mother's death. He informs Lily that her mother left her and when she came back to get her things, Lily accidentally picked up a gun and shot her mother, causing her death. Lily now wants to discover whether her mother did leave her because she didn't love her and if she truly killed her.

Lily's stand-in mother Rosaleen, who had...