Cover Image: The Butterfly Room

The Butterfly Room

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Member Reviews

The Butterfly Room has a beautiful cover that draws one in. It is a multi-generational story about a woman in her 70's who must make difficult situations. There are many secrets throughout this book, a people not willing to share them. I found it a bit frustrating at times. Thank you to Netgalley for this free ebook in exchange for an honest review.

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I love butterflies, so The title, The Butterfly Room captured my interest .  Altho the beginning chapters were alittle slow and too much detail to move on, but it did towards the middle.
 Posy Montague lives in their family estate home thats had many generations, The Admiral House is set in a  Suffolk countryside in England .She shared her childhood catching butterflies with her father. The Botany Gardens details the gardens and the Butterfly Room .
I wouldve loved to visit or grow up in a house like this.
.I admired Posy's character, a strong and yet soft gentle strength that doesnt allow her to break approaching seventy . She crosses a long lost love she didnt care to see again from her college years and still upset why he left without explanation.
Freddie her lost love, is also holding a deep secret.
One of her two sons, Sam, is manipulative ,a self centered ego and with an alcohol problem.
Nick, the kinder, single,younger son  has invested his money into a business, kind of sorry he couldnt buy Admiral House so it stays in the family.
There is too much repair to be done and little money to fix it. Materialistic and personal  family  issues. This countryside house holds many secrets,romance,heartbreaks and mysteries that get resolved later. Many surprises and what held me reading this book(after the middle) are the revelations  falling into place,   and after a few timelines describing the characters,past and present.I already knew towards the end who belonged to whom, and liked how the timelines told some detail to let the present unfold.I want to thank Netgalley for an advance copy to review.

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I haven't read a Lucinda Riley book in such a long time and this cover is just so beautiful that i couldn't say no to the first chance i've got to read it.
I rarely set up high expectations for my reads and this is another case where i went in almost blind because i always find myself surprise and intrigued by the story in the best possible way. And this book definitely surprised me in a good way.
Told in then and now chapters, we get to know about Posy's life as a child and now, at almost 70 years old, as a woman who went through so much in life and that is remembering all the good and the bad times over the years. The Green House in the admiral house is like a magical place where she was the most happy in many years and brings up so many beautiful memories.

It' a great read for the lovers of feel good fiction as it's very heartwarming and uplifting story.

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Second Chances

The Butterfly Room by Lucinda Riley is all about second chances; at love, at life, and about the importance of truth, no matter how difficult it is. Thank you to Pauline Hubert and BookMovement, Blue Box Press, and NetGalley for the gifted e-book of The Butterfly Room. Thank you also to Pauline Hubert for hosting the August 25th Zoom discussion of the book.

Approaching the seventh decade of living, Posy Montague has done the best she could with her life. Born into privilege in Suffolk County, England to an English father and French mother, her childhood before World War II was idyllic, despite a mother with little interest in her child. That childhood is upended when her Royal Air Force fighter pilot father, with whom she collected butterflies for study and release, is shot down and killed in a mission over Europe. Already emotionally distant, her mother physically distances herself from Posy by leaving their home, Admiral House, and sending Posy to live with her paternal grandmother.

With a loving, kind, devoted grandmother, Posy develops into a good, kind, intelligent, and attractive young lady through the years of boarding school and college. After college, she begins working in her dream job was a plant scientist, and falls deeply in love with a young man, only to be left in the lurch by him with no explanation or further communication. Going on to marry another suitor, she and her husband and two sons return to her childhood home and get on with life.

On the eve of her 70th birthday, her husband has passed, her home is getting more rundown with each passing season, her eldest son has failed at every endeavor he has attempted, and her second and youngest son is returning home after 10 years in Australia. All of this comes together to produce events for Posy and her family that will stress their bonds to the breaking point.

Written in a quaint sort of way, this novel seemed to be trying to hit all emotional buttons; romance, mystery, marital discord, infidelity, youthful mistakes, guilt, domestic abuse, substance abuse, and buried truths.

The cover of the American edition is absolutely beautiful and the book did follow through as a good read. The story lines were plausible and flow smoothly. The mystery storyline did surprise me with its outcome. Although not spoken, the book did seem to have a moral message of tell the truth, don't cover things up. I found it to be an enjoyable romance mystery.

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Having previously read many Lucinda Riley novels my expectations were high and sadly I was left a little disappointed.
The writing is as evocative as ever but I found the characters and the plot a little predictable particularly the ending which I had worked out long before it actually arrived.
Probably a good read for those who aren't familiar with this author.
Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

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lucinda riley is just a very long and drawn out author. her series are excessivley long and just way too much. this was no different. i'm gald i got to read it early, but i'll pass in the future. so thank you netgallye. you da real mvp.

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It's June 1943 and Posy is catching butterflies. Posy is very close to her father. Posys father loves animals and plants and he was a botantist before the war. Posy is almost seventy later on and is trying to hold on to her childhood home. I loved posy .

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Multi-generational family drama, lots of threads that get tied up neatly at the end. I found the main character a bit annoying, but the plot was interesting enough hold my interest, It's not my typical book of choice, but an enjoyable read anyway.

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A really wonderful read. The characters had a lot of depth so I never got them mixed up, even though there were many! The descriptions of plants, butterflies, and the gardens were just breathtaking and allowed me to visualize things perfectly.

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Lucinda Riley has a fan in me because of her seven sisters series, and she doesn't disappoint in this one too.
It's a gentle meandering tale with curves and little twists, and not a full blown waterfall in the rainy weather full of gales and steep falls . The story is enticing enough to gently keep turning the pages and not the kind which will give you sleepless nights or an euphoric rush of what happens next. But, that said and done, it's a good story, a tale of family, love, some secrets, a little heartbreak, lots of good things, told in typical Riley style of flitting between dual timelines. Posy Anderson, the protagonist, is a force to reckon with, not because she's successful, or a celebrity, or loud, but a gentle , strong , brave woman, who is kind, compassionate and a seventy year old "girl" with a zest for life. For a girl who's spent most of her life in the countryside, first Suffolk and then Cornwall, she fulfills her dream of getting a place in Cambridge University, a feat rare few women accomplished in the 1950s. But it's her journey as a mother, a wife, a friend, here which is the base of this one. The ends are all tied up neatly in the end, leaving the reader with a sigh and a smile.

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Posy has lived in Admiral House for most of her life...as a child and as a wife and mother.​

Turning 70 has her thinking about the work it takes to maintain her beloved home, and she needs to make a decision about what to do with it.​​

We go back and forth in Posey’s life from her childhood to her adult life.

We also see that her two sons are totally opposite. Sam is a fly by night and Nick is successful.​​

Her sons are at odds about their mother selling their childhood home and Posey is again in the middle. ​​

THE BUTTERFLY ROOM has old houses, family, love, and secrets. ​​

This book is an enjoyable, cozy read with characters that you will love as much as the book’s story line. ​​

If you need an uplifting read, you will want to put THE BUTTERFLY ROOM on your reading list. 5/5​​

This book was given to me by the publisher, BookMovement, and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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I enjoyed the suspense of the story but found it completely unbelievable that Posy returned to her hometown and NO ONE revealed the big secret. Also had a hard time with the dialogue which was very awkward and dated. Way too many "my dear girl" and "darling" in the conversations.

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A lovely family saga. Reminded me of the Shell Seekers. Terrific read.. Loved this one!

Many thanks to NetGalley, the publisher, and the author for my ARC. All opinions are my own.

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Here’s my question: How long is this book? Various editions have page counts of 624, 403, 512, and so on. It’s a mystery, and one I only pondered because my Kindle edition just seemed to creep soooo slowly along. It’s never a great sign when you find yourself wondering how many more pages are in a book before it’s over, amiright?

Lucinda Riley is the writer of the wildly popular THE SEVEN SISTERS series, which I have not yet read. In retrospect, I wish I would have started there as my introduction to this author rather than this standalone. THE BUTTERFLY ROOM is a fine (longish???) novel, but I think my problem was with its characters. They did things to each other, and kept things from each other, that felt false and unrelatable.

That said, I’d still like to get Riley’s marquee series one day. I also think that readers looking for a Suffolk-set multi-generational story with dual timelines (1940’s & 2006) may enjoy THE BUTTERFLY ROOM more than I did… all 672 (or 509?) pages of it.

My thanks to NetGalley and Blue Box Press for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

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The book is a beautifully written multi-generational read starting with Posey and her father in the 1940’s sharing their love of butterflies. Later, as Posey grows up and has her own family, she shares her love of nature. The characters develop throughout the story so that by the end, you feel as if you know them. Posey was an especially memorable character and my favorite in this story.

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Where to begin?! I was drawn to this book by the cover, and I'm so glad I read it. The book spans 60 years and several generations. This is the tale of love, second chances, betrayal, and family. It's beautifully written and the characters are well developed. I laughed, I cried, and I loved it!

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Such a pretty cover; it drew me to this novel although I hadn't read any of Lucinda Riley's books before; indeed hadn't heard of her. The location, beautiful Suffolk, the romance of an old house, a beautiful garden, an older woman and her past love as well as her family in the here and now; all told in an easy style and an escapist read.

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A story that crosses over 2 different timelines. The 1940's and 2006 and set in Suffolk. This is a saga of long held secrets, devastating despair and second chances. Riley’s writing is rich and engrossing. Her characters are convincing.
Not many writers can pull off a tale that is both sad and happy all oat once but I feel that Lucinda Riley is a genius at it.

Thanks to NetGalley, Blue Box Press and Lucinda Riley for my copy of The Butterfly Room.

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The Butterfly Room is a sweeping multi-generational saga of long held secrets, devastating despair and second chances. The writing style was fine. On the whole I enjoyed this book but did feel it was lacking any real sort of story.

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The Butterfly Room is a descriptive, moving, multi-generational saga following Posy in both her past growing up years with her parents, as well as in the present with her two sons and their families and a whole host of secrets.

The story details her life as she reflects upon the loss of her beloved father to the war, then the escape of her mother to France, becoming widowed at a young age and the struggles with her children. We watch as she surprisingly encounters love anew and the struggle as to whether to relinquish her beloved estate, The Admiral House with all its memories and sanctuary that it’s always provided. Set in the Suffolk countryside, the story is atmospheric and rich in description and the perfect background to this sweeping family drama.

This story is long, but also engrossing. If you enjoy family sagas set in duel timelines with historic elements, secrets, heartbreaks and hope, you will enjoy this story.

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