Melissa "Dog/Wolf Lover" Martin's Reading & Ramblings: The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison

Friday, May 27, 2016

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison

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...@goodreads

MY REVIEW:

5 STARS

This book was my kindle first May pick and it's very disturbing. *TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE*

--->EXCERPT<---

In terror she spoke, letting sink her wings till they trialed in the dust--in agony sobbed, letting sink her plumes till they trailed in the dust--till they sorrowfully trailed in the dust.

But my wings couldn't move and I couldn't fly, and I couldn't even cry.
All that was left to me was the terror and the agony and the sorrow.

This story is about an evil man only known as the Gardener. He has a beautiful garden with a water fall and creek and flowers and butterflies. But he also has other butterflies and they are HIS girls. The girls he takes, preferably at the age of sixteen so he can keep them until their twenty-first birthday when he can preserve them FOREVER. At least for the girls that live that long.

He tattoo's intricate butterfly wings on their back and has them wear dresses without the back so he can always see the wings. He is a very different kind of captor, he rapes them and treats them all kindly until he preserves them. It is the strangest book I have ever read about a captor/prisoner situation. That is the reason I gave it 5 stars. This is a book unlike any I have ever read. I have to be careful at reading books about rape. I usually skim over parts if they are too much. In this case the too much comes with the after descriptions and that is performed by the Gardener's evil son Avery. The Gardener punishes Avery when he hurts a girl too badly or kills her. He banishes him for some time but not forever. I would think he would keep him out of his garden forever.

The main character of the story is Maya. She is telling the story of the girls lives to them after the accident saved some of their lives. It's very macabre and sad. I think this author did a great job at writing a book like I have never read before.

Although there is some vindication at the end I wish there was more. I would recommend this book to people that like psychological thrillers because it is just messed up.