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Three Reasons You Should Read This Contemporary Fiction:
- The Butterfly Garden by Sophie Anderson takes you into family secrets and history full of emotion.
- So beautiful – all the scenes have a very visual element to them that really captured the feel and the mood with vibrant descriptions.
- The relationships – both new and old – ebb and flow, change and develop in some unexpected ways that really had me invested through to the end.
About The Butterfly Garden by Sophie Anderson
Title: The Butterfly Garden
Author: Sophie Anderson
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
I blamed my son for the death of my daughter…
When twenty-five-year-old Erin flees London for Cornwall and takes a job at Hookes End, a huge house clinging precariously to the Cornish cliffs, all she knows about it are the stories people tell. The owner, reclusive novelist and butterfly enthusiast Maggie, has kept the curtains of her dusty house drawn for many years. But now she is dying, and Erin, seeing the shadows that cross Maggie’s face, wants to help in any way she can.
Years ago, Maggie’s only son Lucas ran away to the other side of the world and the searing heat of the Costa Rican jungle. Maggie is desperate to see Lucas again – there is something she needs him to know.
Erin wants to help Maggie find peace. But when she travels to the warm white sands and tropical butterfly gardens of Costa Rica to find Lucas, it becomes very clear that he is hiding something too.
As Erin unravels the webs of deceit entangling mother and son, she learns about the terrible tragedy that changed their lives forever: the night when a little girl in a fairy nightdress went missing. But with Maggie’s time fast running out, is it too late for them to find the forgiveness they need to move on?
A heart-wrenching page-turner about a family ripped apart by guilt and lies. Set against the storms of the Cornish coast and the silvery sands of Costa Rica, The Butterfly Garden is a story of love, loss and letting go. Fans of Jojo Moyes, Harriet Evans and Lucinda Riley will be gripped.
My review of The Butterfly Garden:
The Butterfly Garden by Sophie Anderson really packs an emotional punch. Two family dramas unfold on the pages, and both have some pretty shocking revelations. Erin is a young woman that is returning to her hometown “in disgrace” and the topic of gossip everywhere she goes. But she needs a job finds a place with an old woman, Maggie, that needs help writing her final book.
Erin and Maggie gradually become close in their own odd and special way. They seem like a rather unlikely pair, but their relationship is something very special. Maggie’s last book is different than what she usually writes, and Erin soon finds herself on a trip to Costa Rica to deliver the manuscript to Maggie’s estranged son, Lucas.
Costa Rica was incredibly beautiful, and I would love to see all the places Erin visited, but the storyline fell a little flat there. The characters all seemed so contradictory to themselves. While I understood Lucas’s on and off again personality, the rest seemed like pieces that didn’t fit the puzzle. Erin’s whole time here seemed as if it didn’t quite fit – which is odd because Lucas is a vital part of the story.
Erin’s family has their own issues they will need to confront as well, and her time with Maggie helps her realize that secrets aren’t always meant to hurt. This family secret takes the story in a somewhat different direction but still maintains the theme of parents and their children.
I enjoyed the story a lot, and I wish I could have seen how everyone turned out beyond the ending. I feel like there is still so much to say about their lives and their impact on the people around them.
**I voluntarily reviewed a complimentary copy of this book**
