At 680 pages, The Butterfly Room by Lucina Riley might seem daunting but don’t let that put you off.
I find the more I’m enjoying a story, the quicker it is to read. This felt like a quick read to me…
- Publisher : Pan; Main Market edition (26 Sept. 2019)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 672 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1529014964
- ISBN-13 : 978-1529014969
- Reading age : 18 years and up
Posy Montague is approaching her seventieth birthday. Still living in her beautiful family home, Admiral House, set in the glorious Suffolk countryside where she spent her own idyllic childhood catching butterflies with her beloved father, and raised her own children, Posy knows she must make an agonizing decision. Despite the memories the house holds, and the exquisite garden she has spent twenty-five years creating, the house is crumbling around her, and Posy knows the time has come to sell it.
Then a face appears from the past – Freddie, her first love, who abandoned her and left her heartbroken fifty years ago. Already struggling to cope with her son Sam’s inept business dealings, and the sudden reappearance of her younger son after ten years in Australia, Posy is reluctant to trust in Freddie’s renewed affection. And unbeknown to Posy, Freddie – and Admiral House – have a devastating secret to reveal . . .
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Book Review
Posy’s narration switches between past and present, from her 7 year old self in 1943 to 2006 as she is approaching (and reaching) her 70th birthday.
I enjoyed watching how her life experiences impacted on her and felt like I knew her well having experienced life alongside her as a child, through those Uni days, as a single mother, a grandmother… I loved that she finally found her tribe, a place to belong.
Posy is the character we see grow and develop the most.
Posy’s sons, Sam and Nick (and their partners) narrate too, bringing even more emotions and tense scenes.
The Montague family left me breathless at times!
The format contributed to making Lucinda Riley’s The Butterfly Room a page turner for me. I wanted to know what was happening for each and every character.
I had suspicions about the secret and although I was right about this one thing I had no idea just how much that one thing affected something else. Something huge. So much pain and turmoil. But what a strength of character in coming to terms with it.
I also had suspicions about something else and once again, I was right but it wasn’t the whole story. This thread in the story made me cry. I spent the last hour of this story crying. Lots.
I loved the ending. Positivity and hope for Posy’s generation and the next.
Lucinda Riley tackles social issues sensitively and with realism. You’ll experience a myriad of feelings and likely get lost in the story just as much as I did.
Highly recommended.
Lucinda Riley was born in 1965 in Ireland, and after an early career as an actress in film, theatre and television, wrote her first book aged twenty-four. Her books have been translated into thirty-seven languages and continue to strike an emotional chord with all cultures around the world. The Seven Sisters series specifically has become a global phenomenon, creating its own genre, and there are plans to create a seven-season TV series.
Her books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Italian Bancarella prize, The Lovely Books award in Germany, and the Romantic Novel of the Year award. In 2020 she received the Dutch Platinum award for sales over 300,000 copies for a single novel in one year – an award last won by J K Rowling for Harry Potter.
In collaboration with her son Harry Whittaker, she also devised and wrote a series of books for children called ‘The Guardian Angels’ series.
Though she brought up her four children mostly in Norfolk in England, in 2015 she fulfilled her dream of buying a remote farmhouse in West Cork, Ireland, which she always felt was her spiritual home, and indeed this was where her last five books were written.
Lucinda was diagnosed with cancer in 2017 and died on June 11th 2021, surrounded by her family.