I absolutely loved this book!
Nestled on a hill in the jungle of Belize, near the ancient Mayan ruins, lies a butterfly farm. On an unexpected trip, Diana Marcum is immersed in the world of live butterfly trade. The vivid descriptions will transport you into a world of vibrant colors and fluttering wings. But beyond the enchanting world of butterflies, "The Fallen Stones" delves into themes of resilience and hope. The butterfly farm, despite facing numerous challenges, stands as a symbol of survival and perseverance. The farm's caretakers and workers, navigate hardships and setbacks with unwavering determination and optimism. Marcum's stories are heartfelt and humorous, and her writing style is captivating. This memoir has given me a new appreciation for the wonders of nature.

This was a very unexpected book. I usually go into books with as little information as I can about the content, just enough to understand if it will be something I probably will be interested in or not. The way the story began and the turns it took were quite surprising.
The author has written another book about an adventure and life-reaffirming stay in a remote location. Although this does not follow it immediately, it builds on that same principle.
The author has decided to make some life changes and enrol in a fellowship. This part does not have much of an impact on what happens later, but it gives us time to get to know the key players in her life and how she sees things. I also suspect it might just be a filler.
The latter part of the book tackled a very different topic. They find out about a remote butterfly farm in Belize, and after a temporary visit, a longer stay is planned where Diana and her Partner plan to live and work there.
The work is not arduous. It is more supervisory (or so I felt). The initial reactions are quite frank, and the gradual ease with their surroundings and their new life was very entertaining to watch.
There is some back and forth in the time of narration, but for the most part, I really liked life in Belize. They learn from their life there and the local people. The lockdown and covid happen at the tail end of their stay, and it changes things quite drastically. It was informative to see how another country with geographic restrictions tackled the pandemic.
I liked one half of the book a lot and progressed quite quickly through it. I was not as attracted to the other half. I think it is a different view of a whole other country that I probably will never visit, and I recommend it to readers who like to travel through their books.
I received an ARC thanks to NetGalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

All I want to say is, thank you Diana Marcum for this adventure!

It's kind of a travelogue and a story about finding hope and a new purpose in the midst of the Fallen Stones, a butterfly sanctuary in the heart of Belize and I was mesmerised and engrossed by the stories the author recalled. I haven't read many books like this one and it was a new experience. And butterflies are such beautiful and resilient creatures! 🦋❤️

I received an e-Arc of the book from the publisher Little A and the author via NetGalley.

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ -- Beautiful cover on this one!

This book was like a warm hug. I know that sounds cheesy, but that is exactly how I felt reading it. Part memoir, part travelogue, part history...I finished it all in one go! Diana Marcum is a fabulous author. She's engaging. She's humorous. The way she describes the places, the butterflies, the history, makes you feel you are in the jungle with her. The people she meets along the way jump right off the page. Each one of them is a distinct character that will capture your heart. Not just a book about butterflies, there is so much more here. Friendships. Personal growth. Climate change...run (don't walk) and give this one a read as soon a possible!

**ARC Via NetGalley**

This is the second memoir from Diana Marcum, a reporter, journalist, author from central California. Her first apparently covers her time in The Azures and meeting her life partner. This one is about her chance encounter with a quirky billionaire in England, Clive Farrell, who has created a butterfly sanctuary and elaborate gardens in Stratford on Avon. He offers Diana a chance to stay at his rustic lodge in the jungles of Belize for as long as she'd like to stay and learn about the business of the international butterfly trade. This isn't about killing them and putting them in a scrapbook. It is about gardens and nature parks around the world wanting to have butterflies for their colorful beauty (Mr. Farrell's London gardens, private buyers, even Disney World had ordered them). Diana offers her partner Jack a lovely vacation if he'd come along with her. She was supposed to write a travel memoir and decided she could make this Belize location be her destination.

"I FOOLISHLY HAD NOT PAID ATTENTION TO BIRDS BEFORE, BUT IN BELIZE, THEY HAD BECOME OUR NETFLIX".

There are so many details jammed into this book that I can't easily describe it. Yes, the jungle is outstanding, but she doesn't gloss over the very real hardships: the poverty of the region, the lack of everyday supplies and comfort items, the oppressive heat, the mosquitos, the occasional visits from scorpions, the bats who sometimes sleep in the corners of the lodge and then fly out at night, the uncommon but dangerous sightings of snakes or jaguars if you wander off the beaten paths...also hurricanes, droughts, and fires. This is a whole other world for most Americans. Diana has several visitors while they're there-- friends from the states, and Jack's daughter and boyfriend. She sees the wonder in their eyes for the sunrises and sunsets, the starry sky, the local flora and fauna.

'THE EXHIBITS THESE BUTTERFLY ENTHUSIASTS BUILT CREATED A DEMAND FOR PUPAE, WHICH CREATED JOBS IN THE RAIN FOREST THAT DID NOT INVOLVED LOGGING OR OTHER INDUSTRY THAT HARMED THE ENVIRONMENT."

After they are staying there for awhile, an American ex-pat who runs the only decent lodging & restaurant in that area, offers to hand over the bookkeeping for the day to day business of the farm to Diana and Jack so she can concentrate on her own business. They gain close friendships with the men who take care of the farm & various butterflies' lifestages- they record the number of eggs, pupaes, etc. keep them safe from army ants and other small predators, and constantly gather the exact leaves that a type of butterfly will need for the hearty appetite of the caterpillars. I didn't know that every kind of butterfly requires an exact diet of a specific leaf, so some of the men have to find it, harvest it, and carry it up the 159 fallen stones, so called because they are fallen from long ago Mayan structures.

"A 2018 STUDY OF FOSSILS SHOWS THAT BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS HAVE BEEN ON EARTH ABOUT TWO HUNDRED MILLION YEARS, PUSHING THEIR ORIGINS BACK SOME SEVENTY MILLION YEARS THAN EARLIER BELIEVED. THEY'RE OLDER THAN FLOWERS. THEY SURVIVED A MASS EXTINCTION OF LIFE PRIOR TO THE JURASSIC PERIOD".

If you stick with it past the slow start (for me) when she is staying in Cambridge to complete a Harvard fellowship, you will be rewarded with a slow-paced but immersive read about a place and lifestyle most of us will never experience.

“What if I had stumbled upon the true purpose of butterflies? Of course, there was the role of pollinator - key to the entire ecosystem and their deep, cultural meanings. But what if they were also like, well, cosmic Post-it Notes? Don’t forget: be amazed. To-do: be thankful. Maybe they were eye-catching reminders that, yes, there are powerful dark forces and heart-wrenching loss, but there is also beauty and color.”

Are you feeling stressed about world events right now? Why not take an armchair travel with Diana Marcum to a butterfly farm in the most biodiverse region in the world, the rainforest of Belize? Her memoir is about finding a way forward when everything around you is falling apart and she’ll leave you with a plea to protect our environment, starting with butterflies.

Diana, a journalist, and her partner, Jack Moody, take a leave of absence from work and move into a jungle house atop a hill in the rainforest in Belize. The property, Fallen Stones Butterfly Farm, is owned by British billionaire, Clive Farrell, who is a philanthropist, an environmentalist and a lepidopterist. He’s also the owner of Stratford-Upon-Avon Butterfly Farm.

Diana gives readers a background to the challenges Clive Farrell had in setting up the butterfly breeding farm - challenges that flattened all his hard work, several times over, yet he rebuilt and maintained his focus of saving the butterflies. You’ll be amazed reading about Hurricane Iris that swept through the rainforest and didn’t leave one single leaf for the caterpillars to feed on and your heart will skip a beat when you read about a farm worker’s ingenuity that saved 600 pupae. This single act of foresight is responsible for the butterflies today; every one of them traces back to the ones Sebastien saved. In the last pages of this book, Diana shares the struggle of keeping the farm going during Covid when staff were at home in lockdown.

The writing is phenomenal. She’ll have you hearing butterfly wings and feeling the wisp of a breeze on your face as they pass by. She’ll have you watching the Blue Morpho ‘eclosion’ ( butterfly emerging from its chrysalis) and you’ll see it all vividly as the butterfly emerges from the cocoon. She’ll have you hearing the cicadas and howler monkeys, anticipating the scorpions and jaguars, and in awe of the blue bees. I almost felt like I was sitting on the veranda, high up in the treetops, sipping on cold sweet tea as the butterflies danced past me.

Diana doesn’t just tell you about her experience and adventure of the past couple of years, she teaches readers. I was in awe reading about the butterfly-ant symbiosis, the relative age of this delicately winged creature, and the ruins of Lubaantun on the property.

The meaning behind the title? Well, you’ll just have to read to find out!

This is a must-read if you like learning about one of the most vulnerable organisms to climate change, if you are drawn to stories about protecting them, or if you are looking for a visceral read that will allow you to escape for a few hours.

I was gifted this copy by Diana Marcum, Little A, and NetGalley and was under no obligation to provide a review.