This sweet and slow moving romance between two women in their 40s is a low-angst read. I loved the Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics, but the overlap between the two books is minimal. I think this would work as a standalone.

Warm, easygoing Penelope is equally comfortable in men's and women's clothes and is much more attractive than she appears on this cover. Agatha is a pragmatic widow who didn't notice she was lonely until she befriends her local beekeeper, and discovers trousers are mighty comfortable. Both women have had previous relationships with other women, so this isn't a coming out story, which I loved. But as they start to build a friendship while tending hives together, they get to play the age-old game of figuring out if the woman they want, also wants them back.

I have to admit, I found the beekeeping scenes exceptionally boring. Apparently I am a horrible person who just wants to eat honey, enjoy a well-pollinated garden, and not read about how to make those things happen. Even women moaning while taste-testing honey is apparently not enough to get me excited about bees.

However, I enjoyed the cozy scenes of village life, and Penelope's circle of friends, and the backdrop of historical politics.

4+ Stars for this second in series, my second by Waite. I could see upping the rating on a reread.

For all the HRs that use the Regency period as a fairy tale background, a story that uses history as integral to the plot feels fresh and original. This is one of those stories. After reading the first in series, I was looking forward to another by Waite. I thought some of the pitfalls that first book had, where it could get off track and wordy in descriptions, were avoided here. It struck the right balance between detail and story flow.

Agatha and Penelope are two middle-aged women lonely in love. Agatha is a widow and Penelope is independently living as wife to an absent husband in name only. Agatha is introduced in the first book. She runs a press, and when visiting her warehouse outside of town, she needs the help of a local bee expert when a hive makes its home in one of her presses. A friendship develops through correspondence and feelings and desires deepen. I found the reading of their growing intimacy cathartic. It was essentially the story of two lonely souls finding each other.

The historical context was set in the time when Queen Caroline returns to England, and King George IV seeks divorce. There is social unrest and sides forming in support of both. The way this is shown and some scenes related to it were clever and interesting. It makes you wonder why more stories do not feature these types of settings and backgrounds. I find it much more interesting than ballrooms and house parties. It's not the first I've read with some consideration to this historical setting (two books come to mind), but there are loads of HRs set around 1820 that take no account of the news of the day.

The reason this is at 4 stars and not more is because it took me a long time to get through. This is no fault of the book. I'm just not reading much at the time. I overall thought it was lovely, but I think I will need to reread to evaluate it as a whole better.

<i>Thank you to the author and the publisher for a chance to read and review this story. This is my honest opinion.

This second novel in Olivia Waite's Feminine Pursuits novel lives up to the expectations set by Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics. The writing is excellent and the different perspective in historical romance from the typical M/F aristocracy was refreshing. Don't get me wrong, I love those books too, but it's nice to have some change of pace.

This is a slow burn F/F historical romance between a beekeeper and the owner of a print shop. Emphasis on slow burn with lots of quiet pining. Penelope and Agatha meet when a swarm of bees decide to make their home in one of Agatha's warehouses and she needs it removed. They form a seemingly unlikely friendship that slowly grows closer and blossoms into love. Watching the relationship develop between these two was very sweet.

Geez, there were SO many plot lines in this book!

On the one hand, I love that Olivia Waite is writing smart f/f historical romances, and that should definitely be commended. I enjoyed the two main characters and the lovely slow burn romance we had going on, plus the bee keeping aspect of the plot was everything! But, here's where the negatives come in. There were several chapters about King and Queen's marriage problems, relationships with side characters, etc, and I JUST DIDN'T CARE. I found myself zoning out quite a bit because of all of this extra stuff that definitely didn't need to be included in the book.

**Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-arc in exchange for an honest review**

3.5 stars! I enjoyed this one, but didn't necessarily love it as much as the first.

Firstly, I loved the fact that this book has two middle-aged women as MC's. I've never read a romance with a middle-aged woman, but I think it's so important to show that not everyone falls in love at a young age, or that it's okay to fall in love with someone else after you've been married & separated or married & widowed. There's a slow-burn romance between them that is fitting for the time period but I didn't necessarily love reading 300 pages before they got together. The yearning was well written, but I kind of wish there was more? I'm a sucker for some good yearning. This just felt like another ye olde romance, and I would have preferred more of them actually being in a relationship and sneaking around like teenagers (but as 40 year old women) y'know?

I think overall, there were too many plot points, though. I really loved the beekeeping - I could honestly have read about that forever. I also thought the other plot points surrounding families and relationships were interesting and I would have liked to see more development there rather than trying to involve political aspects of the time period? I don't think it was out of place or anything, but it felt like the addition of politics this way was just a bit much to go with everything else neatly. I understand all the talks about marriage and divorce in a political way, and I think that was done well, but I didn't care to read about the King and Queen and ended up skimming a lot of those sections.

I'm definitely still anticipating the next book!

Well written, well characterized, and a fun read from page to page - Olivia Waite's "The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows" is a definite read for fans of sapphic romance.

This book was an exhausting experience. It was entirely to long with entirely to many subplots and a way to many evil or disappointing men. I felt exhausted just listening to it. It would have been easier if one plot point about sedition was focused on rather than multiple because it pulled the plot in to many directions and by the time I got to the end with the Vicar I just was so tired. The vicar went from being mildly annoying about his sister and the will to putting the heroines gay husband in the stocks! There was just way to much going on.

I think this is less of a slow burn and more of two women who realize that they've been a relationship the entire time and then are like oh shit lets get it on right now immediately after kissing at 75%. It felt more like a historical that happened to have a queer romance subplot than an actual romance.

I look forward to the next on in the series that hopefully isnt pulled into 10 different directions.

I went into this book expecting a fun, enjoyable story with interesting characters and wonderful romance. I got all that and so much more. Agatha is very business oriented and pragmatic. Penelope is a beekeeper who runs a little wild herself. Then you add in Agatha’s son and Eliza and Penelope’s husband and her brother and the vicar and Lady Summerville and it all comes together in a way that kept me engaged and wouldn’t let me put the book down. I especially appreciated the social justice aspect of the story. All in all, I loved everything about it!!

I think this author may just not be a good match for me. I liked her first book better, but that one also had the same problems this one does--way too slow burn and more philosophizing than action. For people who prefer a slow and tender romance, this author and this book might be a great fit.

DNF @ 54%

This is an amazing piece of historical fiction, but the romance just... wasn't there for me. It's a suuuuuuper slow burn, and when I decided to DNF at 54% I wouldn't call it a burn so much as ... I was going to say simmer but it's barely even that. The focus is so fiercely on the politics in this book that I felt like there just isn't a lot of development for Penelope and Agatha. We get this budding friendship and sort of glimmers of "oh, I am into this person" (more on Agatha's side than Penelope's). I love a good slow burn, but it had better be FRAUGHT with tensions and pining, and that's just... not in this book. At least not in the first half, and reading some other reviews it seems like it takes until about 2/3 to 3/4 of the way into the book for their romance to really get going. If this was historical fiction, fine, but I expect my genre romances to have a focus on the ROMANCE by at least a third of the way through the book. The writing is still great and I'm giving this three stars because the book itself is fine, it's just a miss for me.

This is the second book in the Feminine Pursuits series, and can be read as a stand alone. DEFINITELY read the first book, The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics, as it's AMAZING. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series, The Hellion's Waltz, and hoping it's more to my tastes.

The Lady's Guide was one of my favorite books of the year. It was intelligent and romantic and everything I wanted in a romance. Waspish Widows, unfortunately, did not live up to its predecessor.

This second installment in the series focused very heavily on the politics of the time, but, to be honest, not in an interesting way. The emphasis on divorce felt a little bit like small potatoes given the lack of universal suffrage, and the beekeeping ended up being too technical for the most part to be enjoyable. Part of what I loved about Lady's Guide was that the main characters got together fairly early and that the book was more about them being together, but Waspish Widows fell into ye olde romance format and I feel like it suffered. I'm still going to pick up the next book in the series, but it will be with much lower expectations.

Lovely and well-written F/F friends-to-lovers. I found it a little slow and a bit heavy on the beekeeping background and sedition subplot. I also had trouble tracking POV characters and felt that the "advanced age" of the two heroines was overemphasized. That said, there were sentences that made me swoon simply from the delicate yet precise writing. This was probably not my favorite book from Ms. Waite, but she is a talented writer who I will read again.

Olivia Waite did not disappoint in this f/f historical romance set in 1800s England. A widowed Mrs. Griffin runs a printing business and runs into trouble at her country warehouse in the form of bees. Mrs. Flood, a sailor’s wife, comes to the rescue and a fast friendship forms. The two develop feelings toward the other amidst talk of revolution and growing unhappiness with the monarch. Will they find their happy ever after? It’s definitely worth the time to read and find out!

My thanks to NetGalley and Avalon Impulse for an ARC in exchange for an honest book review.
Having enjoyed Olivia Waite’s ‘The Lady’s Guide to Celestial Mechanics’, I looked forward to her second book in the Feminist Pursuit Series. ‘The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows’ did not disappoint. With historical detail and the slow simmering of romance we follow Penelope Flood, who is in a ten year marriage of convenience and a bee keeper in the local village and Widowed print shop owner Agatha Griffin. As paths cross, an attraction begins. Penelope and Agatha face external conflicts and internal desires as their relationship slowly unfolds. Olivia Waite’s writing beautifully describes each character and the relationshipS within this novel, Isabella & Joanna, Penelope’s sailor husband who happens to be in love with her brother, Agatha and her son Sydney are so well done..
This is a novel of loyalty, of love, of women and history and is thoroughly enjoyable and recommended.

Slow slow SLOW burn book (no physical contact until about 60%) but good grief, the build up was so hot that when they finally DO touch each other it's explosive.

Agatha Griffin is a widow who runs a press in London with her son and her female apprentice. She worries for her son as he is politically involved and she doesn't want him to get in trouble. However, when a book in her other press outside of town is invaded by a bee colony, she needs help. Through her mother in law, she meets Penelope Flood. Penelope is eccentric: she wears mens clothes to do her job as a beekeeper. We also find that she is married to a sailor who she sees maybe once every decade, and that suits her just fine as she is a lesbian. Agatha and Penelope's friendship-- and eventual attraction-- grows parallel to the return of Queen Charlotte who does not want her husband, the Prince Regent, to divorce her very publicly. There is a great secondary storyline about women's rights (or the absence of) once they get married as well as morality and double standards in Regency England. I kept wondering how two women could have a HEA in this context and yet... we get it! Yay!

Can we talk about that horrible cover though? It is so weird and awkward and not at all Regency! This book deserved an amazing cover.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for this review.

As a big fan of Olivia Waite's first book in the Feminine Pursuits series, The Lady's Guide to Celestial Mechanics, I've been eagerly awaiting the publication of The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows since it was announced. I'm grateful to have been given an ARC, in exchange for an honest review, but honestly, that review...

There's a lot of good in Waspish Widows, but it feels like a jumble of positive things rather laboriously placed next to each other rather than assembled smoothly into a whole. I've seen some other reviewers complain about the many pages spent focusing on 1820s politics, or the drawn-out details of beekeeping; I don't have a problem with either, and actually really enjoyed learning more about both, but they felt like sections separate from the love story at the heart of the novel. There are three books happening in parallel here - the slow-burning but eventually quite steamy romance between the widowed Agatha and beekeeping Penelope; an introduction to the history and politics of Queen Caroline's trial and of divorce laws in 1820s Britain; and a treatise on beekeeping practices. (This book is, in many ways, the Moby Dick of bees...though more explicit about the queer love story.) And I was absolutely here for all three of these things, I just wanted them to feel like they interwove more seamlessly than they did.

Penelope and Agatha are strong, interesting, human characters, though their attraction to one another feels rushed for a book that is otherwise fairly lengthy and slow-burn-y for a romance. The other people in their lives, from the fiery poet Joanna Molesley to Agatha's radical son, Sydney, and his beloved, the apprentice Eliza, are just as fleshed out and engaging. The love story works, it just takes a while. The beekeeping information works, it just...goes on a while. And the tale of a small country town's fight over prudish 'civility' versus free speech, reflecting the broader issues happening in the country at large, works. They all just work a bit disjointedly.

Ardent fans of Celestial Mechanics will probably enjoy Waspish Widows; those less in love with the first one might find this second one "that, but more so." But I'm still looking forward to the eventual third, and further books, in the Feminine Pursuits series.

Thank you to NetGalley and Avon Books for the advance review copy!

as the follow up to waite's the lady's guide to celestial mechanics, the care and feeding of waspish widows is an excellent second entry in the feminine pursuits series.

agatha griffin, a widowed mother trying to keep her printing business afloat while taxes are on the rise and censorship is rampant. so when she finds a nest of bees in a warehouse it's a pretty big problem.

so when penelope, a beautiful beekeeper, comes on the scene to help agatha get rid of the problem, the connection and friendship that blossoms between them is unexpected.

penelope has a long-absent husband, and england is ruled by a queen who is consumed by the idea of modesty so the women risk quite a bit in exploring their relationship further,

but what they find in each other is well worth it. this was so worth the read.

**the care and feeding of waspish widows will publish on july 28, 2020. i received an advance reader copy courtesy of netgalley/harper collins (avon) in exchange for my honest review.

Olivia Waite writes beautiful books that are the slowest of slow burns. The Care and Feeding of Waspish Widows is no different. This is a romance between two middle-aged women, who are pushing back against society's conventions in their own ways. One runs a printing business after the death of her husband, and one is a beekeeper, in a "convenient" marriage to a whaler who is only home a few times a year. These two become friends, and then slowly, slowly become lovers. The prose in this book is gorgeous. Olivia immerses the reader in the story with wonderful side characters, beautiful descriptions, and historic details. The romance is set against the backdrop of the political unrest surrounding King George and Queen Charlotte's divorce, and the accompanying issues of women's rights. This is not a ballroom historical. It's a beautiful glimpse of the everyday lives of the working class.

(I was provided with an ARC of the book by NetGalley, but the opinions here are my own.)

Agatha Griffin is a printer. Penelope Flood is a beekeeper. They meet when Agatha finds bees in the wall of her warehouse in Melliton. Both are alone. Agatha is a widow; Penelope’s husband (of convenience) is at sea with her brother on a whaling ship. The women enjoy each other’s company. There is a spark of attraction at first, and as they spend time together in Melliton and London that attraction grows. Could they be falling in love? Can they make a relationship work?

Agatha and Penelope (Griffin and Flood to each other) are wonderful characters. Their story takes place amid political upheaval and small-town tyranny. Intelligent, strong, and independent, they weather it all. A little history, interesting side stories, interesting facts about printing and beekeeping, and a heartwarming romance make this an enjoyable read.

I received an ARC of the book from the publisher via NetGalley. My review is voluntary.

This is the second book in Olivia Waite's Feminine Pursuit's series. I haven't read a lot of wlw romances, but this series has made me want to read more.
Penelope Flood is a bee keeper who has just lost her mentor. Agatha is a widow who runs a print shop. The two form a friendship during the regent scandals in the early 1800s in England.
The historical aspects of this book are interesting and informative. They simultaneously add to the story, the tone, and the characters. I also love how the issues that these characters face feel realistic for their time. This is definitely a slow burn romance, but the historical events and characters keep it interesting and exciting.