Tag: Women's Fiction

The description of this book caught my eye for the “family secret” aspect. I’ve come to realize that I enjoy reading what authors come up with as desperate or “awful” enough to have been kept a secret.

Sometimes, they are totally worthwhile, and I’m left speechless by the way everything has been crafted. Other times, they don’t seem to live up to the hype of the story.

I’m happy to say that this book falls firmly in former category. But more on that in a minute.

I’m also interested in how the characters react to the aforementioned secrets. Are they totally surprised, and does it set off a new chain of events? Or do they accept it and continue as is, simply holding on to new knowledge.

Again, this one falls in the former category.

I honestly didn’t know what to expect from Erin or Maggie. The author did a great job of making their characters fairly unlikeable in the opening chapters. I think this worked because it made their eventual friendship (not a spoiler) that much more poignant.

Erin was a young girl at odds, and she had to return to her village with her tail tucked between her legs. We all can relate to that feeling of having messed up so badly that nothing will ever be right again.

I thought her growth was exciting to watch (read?). She drew on her strength before she even realized she had any. A pivotal moment with her parents catapulted her into action that (at first glance) seemed like a childish tantrum, but actually showed depth of feeling and helplessness.

And that’s when family secrets are the most interesting.

I liked how Erin lived vicariously through Maggie and vice versa. I also liked how Maggie’s story (including the secrets) was relayed. There was even a meta touch near the end that I enjoyed.

I don’t want to give away any plot points, because it was enjoyable to discover them on my own (and I want to give readers that opportunity). But I will repeat how much I enjoyed Erin’s journey.

I will also say, though, that it took me a bit to understand the title and the symbolism of the butterflies. The author was very subtle with this, which I appreciated. In fact, it really wasn’t until I sat down to write this review that all of the different ways occurred to me.

There are a lot of books out there with taglines about being emotional page-turners. I think the sign of a really good one is when I don’t go in expecting to feel anything but find myself nodding in agreement at a character’s actions or tearing up unexpectedly.

Once again, this book delivers in both of those cases. It’s a well-written, compelling story with regrets and new beginnings. And it should go right on your TBR list.   

Author Bio:
Sophie Anderson enjoyed a career in TV production in London before working with her husband to set up an online software business where she wrote the marketing content. But neither scratched that creative itch to tell a story, so she enrolled on a writing course and wrote her first novel The Butterfly Garden. She lives in Sussex with her husband, four children, a cocker spaniel and two cats.

I’m left with mixed feelings about this book.

On the one hand it was a decent family drama that explored the secrets families keep from each other. It was also a good look at the many faces we wear: the front we put up for other people, what we share of ourselves with family members, and how each of those may differ from our true self.

It’s also a searing look at how lies can easily be compounded into untenable situations.

On the other hand, I found the characters to be weak and frankly unlikeable. Not weakly written, but their nature was weak.

Take Stella for example. The opening chapter hits hard. She’s celebrating her 40^th birthday with her husband, and then…wham! Her life changes on a dime. And then she kind of continues to take it, at least up to a point. I didn’t quite understand that.

I hated Rob from the beginning. He was arrogant, obnoxious, supercilious, and just an all-around jerk. I mean, beyond any other bad characters, this guy really took the cake. It made all of the scenes he was in unenjoyable because he was just…icky.

There were quite a few twists in the story, and I guessed them early on. That’s not to say that it is a boring story or a suspense type of plot. It was evenly paced, and the story rolled out naturally.

In fact, maybe that’s why I have mixed feelings. It’s a beautifully crafted, well-written story with characters who are just not appealing, relatable, or even likeable. Interesting.

Anyway, my favorite character, and the one I thought was the most developed, was Georgie. Not only was she a teenager with gravitas, but she handled the crazy adults who surrounded her with class.

I thought the second half of the book was smoother than the first. I guess in a way, that mirrors Stella’s experience. As I said before, well-written book with an interesting plot but characters, who, for the most part, did nothing for me.

I would still recommend it, because other readers may find themselves in Stella or Molly (or even Georgie), and the writing is top-notch.

Author Bio:

Ali decided she wanted to be a writer early on and wrote her first novel when she was at primary school. She did an English degree and spent her early twenties working in various jobs in journalism, including as a reporter for the showbusiness newspaper The Stage. She started writing fiction in earnest after getting married, moving out of London to the Oxfordshire market town of Abingdon and starting a family. She has two children, a daughter and a son who is autistic and was diagnosed when he was four years old.
Ali is fascinated by families, their myths and secrets, and the forces that hold them together, split them up and (sometimes) bring them back together again. She always travels with tissues and a book and has been known to cry over a good story, but is also a big fan of the hopeful ending.

This book had a great hook, and it was even better that the author carried through on the promise of the blurb.

I’ve mentioned before how that doesn’t always happen, or that the blurb gives too much away. In this case, it was the perfect amount of information to pique my interest but not so much detail that I already knew what was going to happen.

I could recommend this book on that alone. But there was way more to make it a great beach read.

I really liked Jill from the very beginning. It was obvious that she was out of her element and uncomfortable, and we’ve all been in that position at one time or another. Problem was that it was pretty much Jill’s entire life. It was unsustainable.

And when it went sideways, boy did it really go sideways.

I was actually glad to see it happen, because Marc rubbed me the wrong way from the beginning. I mean, I know he was meant to, but he was really, REALLY awful.

One of the things that I appreciated most about the book was that the author didn’t try to hide any twists or big revelations. It was a simple story that progressed naturally, so all of the surprises occurred organically.

That’s a fancy way to say that the story was told well and had me engrossed in Jill’s progress.

In fact, I enjoyed just how simple everything was. Nobody was a caricature or stereotype, nobody seemed fake. Everyone was genuine (even Marc and Cush in their ugliness).

I especially liked that the townspeople of Dewberry Beach were authentic. That’s a location I would love to visit.

When retribution comes, and it does in the most wonderful way, I couldn’t help but cheer for Jill. She truly stood strong, embraced the person she was always meant to be, took a leap of faith (backed by some street smarts) and came out better for it.

Oh, and once again, I love the image of Kintsugi art as a symbol of a character’s re-creating themself. Very clever.