4.3
-
88,556 ratings
An Amazon Charts bestseller.
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…
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ISBN-10
1503934713
ISBN-13
978-1503934719
Print length
286 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Thomas & Mercer
Publication date
May 31, 2016
Dimensions
5.5 x 1 x 8.25 inches
Item weight
10.2 ounces
Some people stay broken. Some pick up the pieces and put them back together with all the sharp edges showing.
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My secrets are old friends; I would feel like a poor friend if I abandoned them now.
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The trouble with sociopaths, really, is that you never know where they draw their boundaries.
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1503934713
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Sometimes a story is powerful enough—and horrifying enough—to instantly transfix us and forever change the way we look at a simple object. In The Silence of the Lambs, it’s the lotion in the basket. In this gruesome crime novel, it’s butterflies.
Maya, a fierce survivor, leads us through the aftermath of a brutal event as she recounts her tale to the FBI, but her story keeps us at the edges, letting the questions simmer, bubbling up small answers that beg new, bigger questions in their wake: How did Maya escape captivity? Did the other girls survive? What happened to the garden—and the Gardener?
Maya reveals a vivid dimension to the twisted puzzle and raises larger questions about her own motives. As the truth slowly emerges from a carefully constructed cocoon, author Dot Hutchison has us questioning whether this is a tale of terrible beauty or a beautiful tale of terror.
The frantic rustling of a butterfly’s wings against a collector’s net seems futile—but when many butterflies flock together, they become much harder to pin down. For us, this innocuous symbol of transformative beauty will forever be a perverse reminder of the Gardener, a depraved man with his magnificent, grotesque collection of butterflies.
I
The techs tell him the girl on the other side of the glass hasn’t said a word since they brought her in. It doesn’t surprise him at first, not with the traumas she’s been through, but watching her now from behind the one-way mirror, he starts to question that assessment. She sits slumped in the hard metal chair, chin resting on one bandaged hand as the other traces nonsense symbols onto the surface of the stainless steel table. Her eyes are half-closed, deep shadows bruising the skin beneath, and her black hair is dull and unwashed, scraped back into a messy knot. She’s exhausted, clearly.
But he wouldn’t call her traumatized.
Sipping his coffee, FBI Special Agent Victor Hanoverian studies the girl and waits for his team members to arrive. At least his partner, anyway. The third core member of their team is at the hospital with the other girls, trying to get updates on their conditions and—when possible—their names and fingerprints. Other agents and techs are at the property, and what little he’s heard from them makes him want to call home and talk to his own daughters, make sure they’re well. But he has a way with people, especially traumatized children, so it’s the sensible choice for him to be here, waiting to go in and talk to this particular victim.
He can see the faint pink lines around her nose and mouth from an oxygen mask, smudges of dirt and soot across her face and borrowed clothing. Bandages wrap around her hands and her upper left arm, and he can trace the bulky line of others beneath the thin undershirt someone at the hospital gave her to wear. She shivers in the off-green scrub pants, her bare feet pulled away from the cold floor, but doesn’t complain.
He doesn’t even know her name.
He doesn’t know the names of most of the girls they rescued, or the ones they were far, far too late to save. This one hasn’t talked to anyone but the other girls, and even then there were no names, no information. Just . . . well, he can’t really call it comfort. “You’ll die or you won’t, now relax for the doctors so they can work” wasn’t exactly reassuring, but that’s exactly how the other girls seemed to take it.
She sits up in the chair, her arms extending slowly over her head until her entire back is curved like a bowstring. The mics pick up the painful pop of vertebrae. Shaking her head, she slumps back over the table, her cheek pressed against the metal, her palms flat against the surface. She’s facing away from the glass, away from him and the others she knows must be there, but the angle offers another piece of interest: the lines.
The hospital gave him a picture of it; he can see just the edges of those brilliant colors peeking out against the back of her shoulder. The rest of the design is harder to see, but the undershirt isn’t thick enough to obscure it completely. He pulls the picture from his pocket and holds it up against the glass, looking between the glossy paper and what he can see of the design on the girl’s back. It wouldn’t be significant except that all but one of the girls have them. Different colors, different designs, but all the same in essentials.
“You think he did that to them, sir?” asks one of the techs, watching the girl on the monitor. That camera is aimed from the other side of the interview room, showing an enlarged view of her face, her eyes closed, her breaths slow and deep.
“I guess we’ll find out.” He doesn’t like to make suppositions, especially when they know so little yet. This is one of the very few times in his career where what they found is so much worse than they could have envisioned. He’s accustomed to thinking the worst. When a child goes missing, you work your ass off but don’t expect to find the poor thing alive at the end of it. Maybe you hope. You don’t expect. He’s seen bodies so small it’s a wonder there are even coffins to fit them, seen children raped before they know the meaning of the word, but somehow this case is so unexpected he isn’t quite sure where his footing is.
He doesn’t even know how old she is. The doctors guessed sixteen to twenty-two, but that doesn’t help him much. As young as sixteen, she should probably have a representative from child services, but they’ve already swarmed the hospital and made things difficult. They have valuable and necessary services to provide—but that doesn’t get them out of his way. He tries to think of his daughters, what they would do if they were locked in a room like this girl, but none of them are this self-contained. Does that mean she’s older? Or just that she’s had more practice seeming unaffected?
“Have we heard more from Eddison or Ramirez yet?” he asks the techs, not taking his eyes off the girl.
“Eddison’s on his way up; Ramirez is still at the hospital with the parents of the youngest girl,” one of the women reports. Yvonne doesn’t look at the girl in the room, not even at the monitors. She has an infant daughter at home. Victor wonders if he should pull her off—this is only her first day back—but decides she’ll say something if she can’t handle it.
“She was the one who triggered the search?”
“Only been gone a couple of days. Disappeared from the mall while shopping with her friends. They said she went out of the dressing room area to switch sizes and never came back.”
One less person to find.
They’d taken pictures at the hospital of all the girls, even the ones who’d died en route or on arrival, and were running them through the missing persons database. It will take time for results to come up, though. When agents or doctors asked the ones in better shape for their names, they turned to look at this girl, clearly a leader among them, and most said nothing. A few seemed to think about it before dissolving into sobs that brought the nurses running.
But not this girl in the interview room. When they asked her, she just turned away. As far as anyone can tell, this is one girl with no interest in being found.
Which makes some of them wonder if she’s a victim at all.
Victor sighs and drains the last of his coffee, crushing the cup before tossing it in the trash bucket by the door. He’d prefer to wait for Ramirez; another female in the room is always helpful in circumstances like this. Can he wait for her? There’s no telling how long she’ll be with the parents, or if other parents will flock to the hospital once the photos are released to the media. If they’re released to the media, he amends with a frown. He hates that part, hates plastering the pictures of victims across television screens and newspapers so there’s never a way for them to forget what happened to them. At least they can wait until they get the missing persons data.
The door opens and slams shut again behind him. The room is soundproof but the glass rattles slightly and the girl sits up quickly, eyes narrowed at the mirror. And, presumably, the ones she has to know are behind it.
Victor doesn’t turn around. No one slams a door quite like Brandon Eddison. “Anything?”
“They’ve matched a couple of fairly recent reports, and the parents are on their way. So far it’s all East Coast.”
Victor pulls the picture from the glass and puts it back into the pocket of his jacket. “Anything else on our girl?”
“Some of the others called her Maya after she was brought here. No last name.”
“Real name?”
Eddison snorts. “Doubtful.” He struggles to zip his jacket over his Redskins T-shirt. Once the response team found the survivors, Victor’s team was called in from off duty to handle it. Given Eddison’s tastes, Victor’s mostly grateful there are no naked women on the shirt. “We’ve got a team going through the main house to see if the bastard kept anything personal.”
“I think we can both agree that he kept some very personal things of theirs.”
Perhaps remembering what he saw at the property, Eddison doesn’t argue. “Why this one?” he asks. “Ramirez says there are others not too badly injured. More frightened, maybe more willing to talk. This one looks like a tough nut.”
“The other girls look to her. I want to know why. They must be desperate to get home, so why do they look at her and choose not to answer questions?”
“You think she might be part of this?”
“That’s what we need to find out.” Picking up the bottle of water from the counter, Victor takes a deep breath. “All right. Let’s go talk to Maya.”
She sits back in the chair when they walk into the interview room, gauze-covered fingers laced together across her stomach. It’s not as defensive a posture as he would expect, and it’s clear from his partner’s scowl that he’s thrown by it as well. Her eyes flick over them, taking in details and filing away thoughts, none of which show on her face.
“Thank you for coming with us,” he greets her, glossing over the lack of choice she’d been given. “This is Special Agent Brandon Eddison, and I’m Special Agent in Charge Victor Hanoverian.”
The corner of her mouth ticks upward in a fleeting movement he can’t really call a smile. “Special Agent in Charge Victor Hanoverian,” she repeats, her voice hoarse with smoke. “Quite a mouthful.”
“Would you prefer Victor?”
“I don’t really have a preference, but thank you.”
He unscrews the cap and hands her the bottle of water, using the moment to adjust his strategy. Definitely not traumatized, and not shy either. “Usually there’s another part to the introductions.”
“The helpful tidbits?” she says. “You like to weave baskets and take long swims, and Eddison likes to walk the streets in heels and a mini?”
Eddison growls and slams a fist onto the table. “What is your name?”
“Don’t be rude.”
Victor bites his lip against the temptation to smile. It won’t help the situation—certainly won’t help his partner’s state of mind—but the temptation is there just the same. “Would you please tell us your name?”
“Thank you, but no. I don’t believe I care to share that.”
“Some of the girls called you Maya.”
“Then why did you bother to ask?”
He hears Eddison’s sharp intake of breath, but ignores it. “We’d like to know who you are, how you came here. We’d like to help you get home.”
“And if I said I don’t need your help to get home?”
“I’d wonder why you didn’t get home before this.”
There’s a not-quite smile, and a flicker of an eyebrow that might be approval. She’s a beautiful girl, with golden-brown skin and pale brown, nearly amber eyes, but she’s not soft. A smile will have to be earned. “I think we both know the answer to that. But I’m not in there anymore, am I? I can get home from here.”
“And where is home?”
“I’m not sure if it’s there anymore.”
“This isn’t a game,” Eddison snaps.
The girl appraises him coolly. “No, of course not. People are dead, lives are ruined, and I’m sure you were very inconvenienced at having to leave your football game.”
Eddison flushes, tugging the zipper up higher over his shirt.
“You don’t seem all that nervous,” Victor notes.
She shrugs and takes a sip of the water, holding the bottle gingerly in her bandaged hands. “Should I be?”
“Most people are when talking to the FBI.”
“It’s not that different from talking with—” She bites her chapped lower lip, winces at the beads of blood that seep through the cracked skin. She takes another sip.
“With?” he prompts gently.
“Him,” she answers. “The Gardener.”
“The man who held you—you talked with his gardener?”
She shakes her head. “He was the Gardener.”
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Dot Hutchison
Dot Hutchison is the author of A Wounded Name, a young adult novel based on Shakespeare’s Hamlet, and the adult thriller The Butterfly Garden. With past experience working at a Boy Scout camp, a craft store, a bookstore, and the Renaissance Faire (as a human combat chess piece), Hutchison prides herself on remaining delightfully in tune with her inner young adult. She loves thunderstorms, mythology, history, and movies that can and should be watched on repeat. For more information on her current projects, visit www.dothutchison.com or check her out on Tumblr (www.dothutchison.tumblr.com), Twitter (@DotHutchison), or Facebook (www.facebook.com/DotHutchison).
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Customer reviews
4.3 out of 5
88,556 global ratings
R. Reza
5
An incredible combination of dark, original, brutal, and beautiful.
Reviewed in the United States on May 26, 2017
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Overall thoughts The Butterfly Garden blew my mind, and it definitely left me wanting more. The combination of such a gripping and intriguing premise, profound and memorable characters and a fantastic use of language has caused this novel to become one of my favorite reads of the year, and one of my favorite mystery & thriller books. While there are some things that I dislike, such as the somewhat lackluster ending, as a whole, the book was nothing short of absolutely amazing. However, I understand that it won’t be for everyone and that many will turn away from the book, be it because of the plot or the brutality of some of the themes. For those that decide to read this, it will probably become a fast-paced and enjoyable ride that will prove itself hard to put down. In this case, the rating that I would give this book would be a solid 5 out of 5 without any hesitation. For a more detailed account of my thoughts, please read below, though there might be some minor spoilers (and I would most definitely recommend reading this book without not knowing much about it).
Plot & Themes This book revolves around a very unique, dark and disturbing premise. A girl, known for the most part as Maya, recounts the tale of how she got herself kidnapped and woke up to what she, and others, referred to as the Garden, which is run by the Gardener, though his sons are also present at different points in the story. While the story starts with Maya being interrogated by a pair of FBI agents who are trying to find out more about the Garden, we are quickly exposed to the actual events that took place in this location.
Despite being kidnapped by a male figure, Maya found herself being awoken by another young girl. This girl is later revealed also to have been kidnapped, and she’s not the only one. Little by little, we are exposed to the practices that take place in this garden. For starters, every girl is tattooed with a different butterfly on her back. Until then, the girls are mostly kept in isolation from the rest of the victims. As she starts being acclimated to the conditions of the Garden and as she gets her own tattoo, Maya starts discovering some harsh realities of her new existence. The harshest of all, perhaps, is that all of these girls are trapped in a dome.
These girls are free to roam the Garden, though they do follow some strict schedules and rules. For example, they need to eat at certain times of the day, and they are only allowed to have select snacks and drinks outside of the designated meals. Furthermore, if any girl isn’t eating, for whatever reason, then they get a visit from the lunch lady, who also happens to be the nurse. This, however, doesn’t even begin to cover the realities that these girls face.
As soon as the girls get their own tattoos, they are raped for the first time by the Gardener. This is, sadly, not the only time that this occurs. In fact, this is a very common occurrence, with the Gardener visiting these girls quite often. The Gardener is not the only person to take part in these activities either, as oldest son also does this. This son in particular though tends to be more brutal with these girls. While the Gardener seems to have some level of affection and seems to care about these girls to some degree, these sentiments are not shared by his son. His son, in fact, tortures and sodomizes the girls through some very sadistic behavior. He even ends up killing some by accident, which leads to another important of the book: death.
Death is an important aspect of the novel. It is a reality that the girls have learned to accept and something that they are surrounded by and reminded of daily. This can be explained thanks to the deranged reasoning that the Gardener provides in order to have his butterfly garden. It is revealed throughout the book that the Gardener’s father used to have a collection of butterflies, which he eventually lost in an accident. Following his father’s footsteps, the Gardener decides to have his own collection, though in a much more disturbing way: by collecting girls with butterfly tattoos on their backs. Due to the relatively short lifespan of butterflies, the Gardener attempts to recreate this phenomenon on his own collection. The way he does this is by injecting them with formaldehyde, and later preserving their bodies on glass displays. These young, preserved girls are kept in the halls of the Garden, next to where the current residents sleep, hence the constant presence of death in the novel.
Another incredibly strong aspect of the book is the characters themselves. The characters in the novel are extremely complex and have their own personality traits. These characters are presented in a way that it is easy to distinguish between them, due to their mannerism and behavior, and in a very convincing manner. The interactions between them also present some very memorable, enjoyable, and emotional moments. The girls throughout the story go through different events, from periods of celebration and happiness to mourning and despair. Even those characters that could be labeled as the villains have their own depth. In my opinion, these characters have certain traits and characteristics that make them easier to remember and to distinguish from past characters in similar genres.
Narration & use of language The narration shifts throughout the book. The scenes where Maya is being interrogated are narrated from a third person perspective, while the events of the Garden are told in the first person. The interplay between both narrative styles is easy to follow and suits the story well. The language used throughout the book is phenomenal. The author has managed to write the novel in such a way that it hooks the reader, despite how messed up and disturbing some of the things are. The descriptions also make the book very vivid. Lastly, the language flows very well and is incredibly easy to follow, causing it to be a fantastic page turner.
Recommendations for further reading I’d recommend this book to anyone that is looking for a solid thriller or, to some extent, a horror novel. I’d also recommend it to those that are looking for either something dark, memorable, or original. Due to the originality, there is very few books that I’d recommend that could capture the same amount of emotions, details, and creativity as The Butterfly Garden does. In the mystery and thriller area, I’d recommend Before I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson. Leaning more towards horror, I’d recommend A Head Full of Ghosts by Paul Tremblay. Lastly, for those that want something between horror and thriller, I’d recommend Bird Box by Josh Malerman.
Thanks for reading my review, and I hope that those of you that decide to read this book enjoy it. Happy reading!
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63 people found this helpful
Amazon Customer
5
Wow
Reviewed in the United States on July 17, 2024
Verified Purchase
Wonderfully written book with a strong main character. Subject matter was heart wrenching but a good read nonetheless. I liked that it wasn’t chapters but just sections.
Amazon Customer
5
Captivating
Reviewed in the United States on July 23, 2024
Verified Purchase
Amazing writing that keeps you captivated page after page. The story behind the girls and their brave fight for survival is inspiring to never give up, never stop fighting.
Melissa
5
A must read! No spoiler review!
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2024
Verified Purchase
Wow, just wow. I was so on the fence about this book and had many tell me to stick with it, that it would be worth it. Oh boy, they were right. I kept reading and before I knew it I was so invested in all the characters that I couldn’t stop reading. If I couldn’t read it (being in my car) I would listen to it. I was staying up until my eyes would finally not open after a blink just to read a little more.
I did NOT expect what happened in the end and I have to say I am so unbelievably happy that I read this book.
There are A LOT of negative reviews and there are just as many if not more good reviews. Take the chance with this one and read it, listen to it, or do both like I did. Either way just go for it, stick with it and you too will not be disappointed that you did.
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Ron K
5
Butterflies Are Not Free
Reviewed in the United States on February 9, 2018
Verified Purchase
There is a lot to like in The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison. I first liked the simplicity yet expressiveness of the cover (at least in the Kindle selection I read.) There is a butterfly, the novel’s name, and the author’s name. There are no blaring font announcements that this is a thrilling psychological thriller (that will leave you gasping). No promises that it is a page-turner. Just a good presentation. But it is one of the best psychological thrillers I have read. There are surprises; it will leave a reader turning pages quickly and it will appeal to fans of a TV series “Lie to Me.”
The setting of the novel is in an interrogation room, although the questioners would shy away from the term “interrogation.” But that was what was taking place and naming it as anything else would not fool Maya. Special Agent Brandon Eddison and Special Agent in Charge Victor Hanoverian were skilled investigators of crimes committed against children. Maya was a few years shy of twenty-one, but she was streetwise and somewhat amused by the questioning techniques employed by the two FBI agents. After all, they didn’t even know her name. At least they knew her name wasn’t Maya and she intended to play the game out until she decided she wanted to provide her real name.
Maya is the central figure in a harem of butterflies created by The Gardener. A rich businessman, he was able to construct a private, fortified garden in which he could indulge his fantasies. Although they had a sexual component, his actual fantasy was that he was saving girls from the street and the hard lives they would have had to lead to survive. The Gardener and his son Avery would kidnap girls that The Gardener would think at risk. They would select girls no younger than sixteen and could be any age up to twenty-one. Older was not better because when a girl reached her twenty-first birthday, she was killed, embalmed, and displayed in containers filled with a resin that kept the body on display. There were many containers that attested to the success of The Gardener’s project.
Why butterflies? The gardener liked butterflies; he studied them. After kidnapping a girl, The Gardener selected a butterfly and tattooed its likeness on the shoulders and back of the kidnap victim. Having sex after tattooing each girl finalized his possession ritual. The girls were then free to live in his garden, complete with waterfall, a library and an abundance of plants and trees, until they were twenty-one when they would be expected to join previous butterflies on display. Once a girl was killed, The Gardener would search for a replacement so that the living butterfly collection remained at about twenty-three.
This size of the confined population gives the author lots of room for character development and Hutchison does this skillfully. Characters are developed well through their behaviors as near familial relationships are developed and broken. With these many characters, it would be easy for an author to give each one a one or two-line description and move on. Hutchison does not do this as characters appear, seem to go away, and then reappear with a valuable contribution to the story. There are inferences and implications seemingly made by characters, but all done through the filter of Maya’s memories. She exposes each character as much or as little as she wants. Characters “speak” through her. And she has an agenda; she will protect the identity of Maya.
Opposing Maya are two FBI agents. Eddison comes off as the heavy, the bad cop, the unintelligent one that Maya has fun manipulating. Maya has realized that Victor Hanoverian might be her equal. She needs to protect her identity until a certain event comes to pass. And she is the only one who knows what the event is. The dialogue between the agents and Maya comes across as very cerebral. The agents had training, but Maya grew up with street survival skills.
I do not believe that anyone can predict this ending. What happened to specific girls? Who is The Gardener? What life does he have outside the Garden? Is there any way to escape? The answers to a lot of these questions are answered throughout the novel. But for the big questions, Maya’s identity and Maya’s agenda, you must read the entire novel.
The novel’s subject will be difficult for some readers. This is about young girls in captivity being tortured and sexually abused by one or more pedophiles. Knowing the subject, is a warning necessary?
This is a good psychological thriller. I gave this five Amazon stars and look forward to reading more Dot Hutchison books.
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