Honeysuckle

Named a Best Book of March 2026 by Barnes & Noble and Apple.

The Bear and the Nightingale meets Weyward in this enchanting, deeply compelling debut about love and power, autonomy and consent.

"Bar Fridman-Tell is a master of the botanical grotesque. This lyrical and captivating debut unsettles and shocks by turns, as a lush and dreamy childhood world gives way to a dark reality." -- Charlotte Cross, author of THE BRIDES

Once upon a time, on the edge between meadow and forest, there was a lonely child with only his older sister for company. In exchange for being left in peace, his sister made him a playmate-Daye, a girl woven from flowers and words. And for the first time, this boy, Rory, had a friend.

Rory couldn't be happier, until he learns that Daye is a short-lived creature. At the end of each season, she must be woven back together or fall gruesomely apart. And every time Daye falls apart might be her last.

As Rory and Daye grow older and the line between friendship and romance begins to blur, Rory becomes desperate to break this cycle of bloom and decay. But the farther Rory pushes his research and experiments to lengthen Daye's existence, the more Daye begins to wonder just how much control she really has over her own life.

As a loose reimagining of the story of Blodeuwedd from Welsh mythology, Honeysuckle is an entrancing, inventive, and unsettling debut.

Bar Fridman-Tell has a BA in art history and an MA in English literature. (She gleefully wrote her thesis about Victorian vampires.) She has worked as a bartender, a bookseller, a translator, and a library assistant. She is currently studying for a master's in library and information sciences at the University of Toronto, hoping to stay in a library for good. She lives in Toronto with her professor husband and two very fluffy cats. Honeysuckle is her debut novel.