Laline Paull Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Laline Paull
Laline Paull was born in England to first generation Indian immigrants. She writes books, screenplays, and plays. Laline studied English at Oxford, theater in London, and screenwriting in Los Angeles. In London, she had two plays performed at the Royal National Theatre. She’s a member of the Writers’ Guild of America and BAFTA.

“Pod” is the conclusion of a trilogy of sorts, because bees led her to pollinators which led her to climate change leading her to the Arctic led her to whaling led her to cetacean societies and the migration crisis in the ocean.

Laline was inspired to write “The Bees” because of her beekeeper buddy, named Angie Biltcliffe. She opened the magic door to the hive for Laline. Angie was dying of cancer, and hoped there would be a flowering of creativity when she’d gone. Laline took this very much to heart. Right after Angie’s funeral, Laline began reading about the honeybees that she loved so much and called “her girls”. That was it for Laline; intrigue turned into fascination which turned into obsession with incredible ancient social order which is the hive, and the extraordinary process of making the unique substance which is honey. Bees are rather miraculous creatures.

Laline loves to write the worst characters because she is safely able to revel in her worst self, so, in “Pod”, the character of the remora was her favorite part to write. She is amazed that the remora fish has never had their own documentary. And the most challenging part was unquestionably about human exploitation and cruelty to other creatures: genocidal overfishing, the negligent cruelty on an unthinkable scale of abandoned and lost “ghost gear” in the ocean. As well as the obscene hunting down of entire pods of dolphins for capture and slaughter for the so-called “marine parks”.

She was inspired to write “Pod” because of stupid naive tourist contact swimming with wild dolphins then she realized her blunder and began to research why a species had driven out another. The answer was an oil spill up the coast.

Her literary influences include the bedtime stories her mom told her that came from Greek myths, then her favorite book for ages was Thorne Smith’s “Nightlife of the Gods”, this comic treat for anybody able to find a surviving copy.

“The Bees” was nominated for a John W. Campbell Memorial Award for best novel and for a Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction Best Book. “Pod” was shortlisted for the women’s prize for fiction in 2023.

“The Bees” is the first stand alone novel and was released in 2014. Flora 717, having been born into the lowest class of her society, is a sanitation bee, just fit to clean her orchard hive. Living to obey, serve, and accept, she’s ready to sacrifice everything she needs to for the Queen, her beloved holy mom.

However Flora is not like any of the other bees. Despite her ugliness, she has got talents which are not typical of her kin. Even though mutant bees are typically destroyed instantly, Flora gets removed from her sanitation duties and is allowed to feed the newborns, before she becomes a forager, collecting pollen on the wing. She also finds her way into the inner sanctum of the Queen, where she finds secrets both ominous and sublime.

However there are foes everywhere, from the high priestesses that jealously guard the Hive Mind and the fearsome fertility police. Flora breaks the most sacred law of all her instinct to serve gets overshadowed by this even deeper desire, her fierce love which will lead to something unthinkable.

Laline’s chilling yet ultimately triumphant debut novel creates a luminous that is both uncannily familiar yet alien. Imaginative and thrilling, this is the story about a heroine who, in the face of this increasingly desperate struggle to survive, changes her world and her destiny.

“The Ice” is the second stand alone novel and was released in 2017. An electrifying story about power, friendship, and betrayal.

This frozen corpse emerges out of a melting glacier and after three years of uncertainty, Sean Cawson is able to put the past behind him finally. Tom Harding, who was friends with Sean for thirty years had been lost in an accident and Sean was the last person that had seen him alive.

Tom’s corpse isn’t the only secret that was hidden in the ice. While global powers and businesses jostle for turf in this lawless and new frontier there are some big opportunities for those with the mendacity, or the courage, to seize them. And equally large risks.

Sean has navigated these dangerous waters for years now, loving the influence and glamour that they bring him. However while the inquest into Tom’s death starts, the decisions made by both of these men, in life and in love, get put on the stand. Before long everything that Sean has believed about his position, his friends, and himself gets thrown into question. Exactly how deep do these lies go?

“Pod” is the third stand alone novel and was released in 2022. A transformative and immersive new novel about an ocean world, its extraordinary mysteries, creatures, and mythologies, which is haunted more and more by the ignorance and cruelty of the human race.

Ea has always felt like she’s an outsider. She suffers from this sort of deafness which means she is unable to master the spinning rituals that unite her pod of spinner dolphins. When tragedy strikes her family and Ea feels as though she is partly to blame, she decides to make the ultimate sacrifice and she leaves.

While she ventures into the vast, she finds dangers all over the place, from odd objects floating in the water to lurking predators. However right when she’s coming to grips with her solitude, this chance encounter with a group of arrogant bottlenoses is going to irrevocably alter the course of her life.

In Laline Paull’s horrifying and propulsive novel, she explores the real meaning of family, sacrifice, and belonging, the tragedy and harmony of the pod, within this ocean which is no longer the sanctuary that it used to be, and reflects a world that’s much too recognizable to ours.