The Butterfly Summer : Harriet Evans

Blurb

What magic is this?

You follow the hidden creek towards a long-forgotten house.

They call it Keepsake, a place full of wonder … and danger. Locked inside the crumbling elegance of its walls lies the story of the Butterfly Summer, a story you’ve been waiting all your life to hear.

This house is Nina Parr’s birthright. It holds the truth about her family – and a chance to put everything right at last.
My review

The Butterfly Summer is what I’d call a sad happy book. A book you’d like to hate but you can’t. It’s full to the brim of nasty characters. Men only after sex and power. Women damaged because of their shared history, despite a history that occurs generations apart. There’s not much to like and yet….

Aren’t we all a product of our upbringing and genetic profiles – Nature v nurture? In a way The Butterfly Summer is one woman’s quest to go against tradition and fight what other women in her family have failed to – the draw of Keepake. Is this a romance, a family saga, a mystery even – I’m still unsure as its none and yet all of these things. Nina is awkward, misguided and rudderless following her divorce. Can the mystery that surrounds Keepsake provide the direction she doesn’t realise she’s lacking until she bumps into an old lady in the library? Is her ex husband key? Malc and him are probably the only characters I really liked in the whole book but then I don’t think I was meant to like the others. A quote from the book says it all ‘He let us get flawed in the making’ (The well of loneliness). Ms Evans chose to write a book about flawed characters spanning centuries and actually manages to pull it off. 

A book to remember.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

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