“When Margery was ten, she fell in love with a beetle....Close up, that small plain thing was not plain, not one bit. Oval in shape and gold all over, it was incandescent. “The golden beetle of New Caledonia,” said her father. “Imagine how it would be to find this one and bring it home.”
I’m Betty Martin with "Martin’s Must Reads" and those are some lines from Rachel Joyce’s newest novel Miss Benson’s Beetle.
After her father dies, Margery discovers the Museum of Natural History and spends several years volunteering with an entomologist who teaches her about the vast variety of beetles, and how to research and collect them.
Thirty years after she sees a drawing of the golden soft wing flower beetle, she quits her teaching job and advertises for an assistant to travel with her to New Caledonia to search for and collect golden beetle specimens. Of the four people who applied -- one, Mundic, a former POW who suffers from PTSD, Margery dismisses and another, Enid Pretty, a quirky young woman with secrets who talks incessantly, is hired by default.
The journey to Caledonia begins with a five week ocean voyage during which Margery is seasick for most of it. After a variety of other modes of transportation, Margery and Enid arrive at their remote accommodations at the base of the mountain where they hope to find the elusive gold beetle. They spend weeks hacking a path up the mountain looking under every rock and bush. Margery and Enid are such wonderfully unique characters who, though complete opposites, develop a deep friendship.
If you’re looking for a story of adventure, mystery, friendship and character growth, then you must read Miss Benson’s Beetle by Rachel Joyce.