Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

The Butterfly Garden tells the horrific tale of the Gardener and his kidnap victims. He collects butterflies, but not just any kind of butterfly; they must be young, beautiful and female. Butterflies like no others, he finds them and allows them to remain in his amazing butterfly garden until they reach the peak of their beauty when he can then preserve them forever. I found this story shocking, and read it with a morbid fascination as Maya tells of her, and the others, frightening and twisted experiences. It is both horrible and yet so terribly sad as Maya reveals what an unfortunate upbringing she suffered and the moment when her parents finally broke the heart of a six year old child. FBI agents Victor Hanoverian and Brandon Eddison are given the responsibility to lead the investigation after the butterfly garden is discovered and some of the victims rescued alive. Maya is obviously a leader to the girls and the two detectives are interviewing Maya to try and unravel the whole terrifying story. But she is proving evasive about her past and they want to know what she is hiding and why. The novel is mainly set in the interview room as Victor and Eddison ask the questions and Maya reveals the details, to them and to us, in her own good time, while frustrating the officers with her clever responses. She comes across as vulnerable, but not shy and the reader can’t help but like and feel sorry for her. Her relationship with the gardener and his two very different children has been traumatic and scary, but she has survived and the question remains as to how close to them all did she really become… This is a pretty frightening story of a twisted mind and his terrifying obsession with collecting butterflies. How the Gardener kept his secret so long and how it all eventually unravelled, as described by one of his beautiful yet damaged young victims. This is an easy read and I was up early and read this in one session. If you enjoy a shocking crime thriller, a serial killer, with a touch of sadness about it, then you will most likely enjoy reading The Butterfly Garden as I did.