Generous prose, delicious descriptions, and a fresh voice to express a world, inside and out…this is "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd. It is an exquisite example of descriptive writing.

A friend who knows I love to write gave me this novel. With no preconceived ideas although it was on the New York Times Best Seller list, I began to read. Immediately I was hypnotized by the skillful pull into Lily’s mind, Lily’s pain, Lily’s joy, accompanied by a background humming of bees. I could not set this book down until I had exhausted it.

The lavish heart of the writer entreats, enchants and pulls the reader to enter the life of a 14-year-old girl who longs for something beyond her reach -- a mother’s love. We are tugged willingly into the search for truth, the need to be loved, the need to be safe, and finally into the souls of the courageous women who comfort and confirm each other in the 1964 racially intense setting.

Listen to the language when Lily presses her cheek on the beehive. "A sound rushed up. A perfect hum, high-pitched and swollen, like someone had put the teakettle on and it had come to a boil." Or later, "She turned her eyes on me, her big, flickering eyes with the copper fire inside them. I wished I could look out at the world through them just one time."

Nowhere have I found a better example of description for aspiring authors. Kidd is never stingy, never over-handed; instead she cleanly spreads her words like pure honey over fresh baked biscuits. Trade in a how-to book for "The Secret Life of Bees" and see how beautifully it can be done.