Today I have another lovely summer read for you by Rachel Burton, The Butterfly Garden, which was published by Boldwood on 28th June
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
This is a dual timeline novel, which alternates between 1963 and 2018. It features different generations but the central focus in both is the setting, Butterfly Cottage. The social attitudes towards women change over the years but in 1963, Clara finds herself up against gossip and prejudices directed towards her as a single woman. She shows her mettle when she buys the cottage and seemingly, settles for a career as a school teacher and a single life. She knows if she was to marry and have children, she would be expected to resign, according to the views of the village which seem to come from an even earlier age.
Meredith inherits the cottage in 2018 and you can contrast how attitudes towards women have moved on. Meredith is at a crossroads in her life. With financial and personal issues in her past, she seems rootless and in need of some security. I appreciated how the two women's stories and experiences were interwoven. Although I did guess the secret at the heart of the novel's mystery, I enjoyed all the story threads and the characters within them.
In short: dual time line and a mystery
About the Author
Rachel Burton is the bestselling author of historical
timeslip novels and has previously written romantic comedies.
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.
You can follow Rachel here:
Thanks to Rachel Burton, Boldwood Books and Rachel of Rachel's Random Resources for a copy of the book and a place on the tour.
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