The Butterfly Garden by Rachel Burton
Genre: Dual timeline, Historical fiction
Read: 21st July 2024
Published: 28th June 2024
★★★★★ 5 stars
DESCRIPTION:
A gripping and beautiful tale of love, loss and secrets. Perfect for fans of Rachel Hore, Lorna Cook and Kathryn Hughes.
1963: When Clara Samuels buys Butterfly Cottage, she knows the scandal she’ll cause. A single woman buying property is not the ‘done thing’, especially not in a village like Carybrook. But Clara has been in love with Butterfly Cottage, and its garden, since she used to play there before the War. And when she reconnects with her childhood friend James, her decision feels serendipitous. But the true scandal is yet to come, because within six months, Clara will leave England under mysterious circumstances, and Butterfly Cottage will stand empty for more than 50 years.
2018: No one is more surprised than Meredith when she’s bequeathed a cottage by a great aunt she’d never heard of. She hopes, briefly, that the inheritance could be the answer to her financial problems. But when she arrives in Suffolk, she is shocked to discover a man is already living there. A young gardener, who claims he was also bequeathed half of Butterfly Cottage.
As the pair try to unravel their complicated situation, they unearth a decades old mystery involving Clara, the garden, and a stack of letters left unread for over 50 years…
MY THOUGHTS:
Can a secret from the past change hr future...?
It was the stunning cover that initially drew me to this book. That and the whimsical title which conjured up thoughts of a delightful tale hidden therein. Therefore I simply HAD to read it. And boy, am I glad I did!
I have struggled to find any connection or interest in many books the last couple of months but this one just blew me away that I didn't want to put it down and I devoured it in one sitting!
London 2018: Meredith thought she had everything she wanted. Her dream job as a hairdresser running her own salon, a nice flat in Clapham and a fiance she couldn't wait to marry. But then a grenade was set off in the midst, blowing it all to smithereens. Suddenly she had no fiance, struggling to pay the rent alone on their shared flat and her business was falling apart as the debts mounted.
Then she gets a call from a solicitor. She has inherited a cottage in Suffolk from her great-aunt Clara. A great-aunt she never knew existed until now. But with this windfall, Meredith could see a light at the end of her tunnel in which the sale of this cottage could be the answer to her troubles. But the solicitor told her to wait until she saw the cottage before she made any decisions. And with that, Meredith believed he was keeping something from her. The question was, what exactly?
Making her way up to Suffolk, a county she had no idea where it was having lived in London all her life, she got lost along the way before finding herself outside Butterfly Cottage in the sleepy village of Carybrook. And there she finally discovers what the solicitor had been keeping from her. Suddenly the answer to getting her out of debt didn't seem so within reach as she had thought. She knew it was too good to be true.
But the question remains, why would a great-aunt she had never met do this? Why even make this bequeath if there was so to be such a condition attached to it? And where has this great-aunt been all her life? She'd never even heard of her before. The only person who could shed any light is her father but she's not seen him since her 18th birthday almost half a lifetime ago, disappearing from her life altogether. And yet she feels he is the only one who could give her the answers she seeks...but how will she go about finding him when? Where would she even start?
Carybrook 1963: Schoolteacher Clara Samuels returns to the village where she grew up when her older sister Esther informs her that Butterfly Cottage, somewhere that held a special place in Clara's childhood, is up for sale. Having inherited a tidy sum from her parents that has been held in trust and gathering interest since, Clara has the means to by the cottage outright...which she does, despite it not being the done thing for an unmarried woman to make such a purchase.
Clara enjoys her independence and she loves Butterfly Cottage, especially the garden which holds many special memories alongside her childhood friend James who lived there at the time. Despite James and his family having moved away soon after war broke out, Clara and James continue to write to each other for the next nine years before his letters disappeared altogether. Clara often wonders what happened to her childhood friend and why he stopped writing.
It's one night at a dance with some friends that a face from the past brings everything back - from the grass stains on her dress to the butterflies and bees in the butterfly garden. Suddenly the years are washed away in a flurry of words, laughter and memories. And Clara, who has prided herself on being driven and independent, will suddenly find her life is about to change in ways she never thought possible.
As the two timelines collide, Meredith does her own soul searching as she finds the answers where she least expects them. And she's also in for one more surprise which will answer all her questions as Meredith begins to unravel the mystery of her great-aunt Clara and the answers surrounding Butterfly Cottage.
A truly delightful tale that I read long into the night simply because I didn't want to leave. I was so immersed within the storyline I wanted to stay there and stay there I did until the final page. I didn't mind that I predicted the direction it almost from the beginning. In fact I rather enjoyed discovering if I was right or not.
I absolutely love dual timeline stories and this one is reminiscent of Lorna Cook and I just loved being in the sleepy Suffolk village and surrounded by all those butterflies and fragrances of the butterfly garden.
A well written unforgettable tale that draws you in from the very first page in such a way you won't want to leave...even after you've turned the last page.
A 5 star read I highly recommend. Especially to those who love dual timeline tales, Lorna Cook and Kathleen McGurl.
I would like to thank #RachelBurton, #Netgalley and #BoldwoodBooks for an ARC of #TheButterflyGarden in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
She has previously written romantic comedies which you can read about here.
Rachel was born in Cambridge and grew up in a house full of books and records. She has read obsessively since she first realised those black squiggles on the pages that lined her parents’ bookshelves were actually words and it has gone down in family history that any time something interesting happened, she missed it because she had her nose in a book.
After reading for a degree in Classics and another in English Literature she accidentally fell into a career in law but her love of books prevailed as she realised that she wanted to slip into imaginary worlds of her own making. She eventually managed to write her first novel on her lunch breaks.
She is obsessed with old houses and the secrets they keep, with abandoned gardens and locked gates, with family histories and surprising revelations, and with the outcomes of those surprises many generations later.
She lives in Yorkshire with her husband, a variety of cats and far too many books. By writing novels she now has an excuse for her head being forever in the clouds.
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