The Butterfly Garden

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison
Published by Thomas & Mercer on June 1st 2016
Genres: Thriller, Psychological
Pages: 276
Format: eBook, Kindle Book
Source: Kindle First, NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer

Near an isolated mansion lies a beautiful garden.
In this garden grow luscious flowers, shady trees…and a collection of precious “butterflies”—young women who have been kidnapped and intricately tattooed to resemble their namesakes. Overseeing it all is the Gardener, a brutal, twisted man obsessed with capturing and preserving his lovely specimens.
When the garden is discovered, a survivor is brought in for questioning. FBI agents Victor Hanoverian and Brandon Eddison are tasked with piecing together one of the most stomach-churning cases of their careers. But the girl, known only as Maya, proves to be a puzzle herself.
As her story twists and turns, slowly shedding light on life in the Butterfly Garden, Maya reveals old grudges, new saviors, and horrific tales of a man who’d go to any length to hold beauty captive. But the more she shares, the more the agents have to wonder what she’s still hiding…

**Special thanks to Kindle First, NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for supplying my copy of this book in exchange for an honest and unbiased review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.**

The Butterfly Garden seemed the right book for me once I saw it. The mysterious dark cover with the synopsis were all calling for me to read this book.

Right from the start, The Butterfly Garden showed to be different. As in most psychological thrillers, girls are abducted by a sick psychopathic person. However, different from most other thrillers, the mystery begins after the girls are found and saved. When I started reading the book I was naively relieved that it started right after the the girls were saved. Isn’t this the point? Come on. The abducted girls are found and saved. Isn’t this the point?! How naïve was I!!! Something was not right. The girls won’t speak. There’s only one girl who the rest of the girls are looking up too. And this girl is determined to hide something.

Now, the thriller became very interesting to me. I couldn’t leave it. I had to know what was wrong. The girl had a very solid character. Nothing could get into her. I became as eager as the police detectives to know what was going on.

The narration keeps going between present and past. The girl starts revealing bits and pieces about the butterfly garden and their captor. We get to know about her past, her childhood, her years as a butterfly as her captor called them and about some of the other girls.

At a certain point, the mesmerizing story became a haunting one for me. It was so dark. I couldn’t take that violence and abuse. It was like a very dark painting. It wasn’t only her years in captivation that troubled me. It was also what she revealed about her childhood. I always find child abuse extremely heart aching and painful.

Then came the ending, and this is where I decided I didn’t like the book that much. Maybe if it were for a different ending I would have given it a higher rating.

Now to be honest, this is a book I had to read and I have enjoyed reading. Even though I gave it only 3 stars, I wouldn’t have missed reading it. I really liked the book (partially). It was very intriguing to me. The writing style was also very good. What I didn’t really like was the ending. I would have endured the violence in the book if not for the ending. It was like getting a very high dose of suspense then ending up with something very colorless and neutral.

Finally, this was my first read for Dot Hutchison. I liked the author so much and I think I will be looking forward to reading more upcoming books by her. Maybe I will be lucky enough to get better endings in future novel.