Local Honey

Jim Yarrow, a wounded World War II vet, sees his luck change when he finds work as a police officer. He now thrives in his beloved hometown on the Merrimack River. Content with his job, his long-term friendships, and his wife and kids, he never expected the girl he loved in high school to reappear in his life.

Becky Bivens fled Riverbend, Massachusetts, in 1941, after her mother’s crimes were exposed. She’s lived a hardscrabble life ever since, and those struggles now help her understand her mother’s troubling choices.

In 1951, Becky returns, intent on building a simple produce stand on the land where she once lived. She intends to raise bees, sell honey, and restore her shattered life, while also helping other displaced women.

Riverbend, like many small towns, is entering a period of great economic expansion, while still recovering from a war that wreaked death and havoc on soldiers and families. However, the town’s growth comes with strict social rules and crippling class divisions. The war widows and homeless people who find refuge at Becky’s farm become social outcasts who face unsettling choices. Becky turns a blind eye to the "services" some of them offer as they squat on her property.

Local Honey is a story of America’s haves vs have-nots. It’s part love triangle, part class struggle, and part dreamy window into the lost New England of the 1950s. The backdrop includes seashore towns, rural farms, the gritty slums of Boston, and brief flashbacks of battlefields. In a community that should be basking in the “winner’s aftermath” of a terrible war, all should be good for everyone. But it isn’t.

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Shawn P. McCarthy is a Massachusetts-based author who explores the history of New England’s mountains, lakes, rivers, and seashores.