The Butterfly Collector
a twisty historical mystery from the bestselling Australian author of THE TALENTED MRS GREENWAY
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
What connects a botanical illustration of a butterfly with a missing baby and an enigma fifty years in the making? A twisty historical mystery from a bestselling Australian author.
1868 Morpeth Theodora Breckenridge, still in mourning after the loss of her parents and brother at sea, is more interested in working quietly on her art at the family's country estate than she is finding a husband in Sydney society, even if her elder sister Florence has other ideas. Theodora seeks to emulate prestigious nature illustrators, the Scott sisters, who lived nearby, so she cannot believe her luck when she discovers a butterfly never before sighted in Australia. With the help of Clarrie, her maid, and her beautiful illustrations, she is poised to make a natural science discovery that will put her name on the map. Then Clarrie's new-born son goes missing and everything changes.
1922 Sydney When would-be correspondent Verity Binks is sent an anonymous parcel containing a spectacular butterfly costume and an invitation to the Sydney Artists Masquerade Ball on the same day she loses her job at The Arrow, she is both baffled and determined to go. Her late grandfather Sid, an esteemed newspaperman, would expect no less of her. At the ball, she lands a juicy commission to write the history of the Treadwell Foundation - an institution that supports disgraced young women and their babies. But as she begins to dig, her investigation quickly leads her to an increasingly dark and complex mystery, a mystery fifty years in the making. Can she solve it? And will anyone believe her if she does?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The immersive latest from Cooper (The Fossil Hunter) interweaves two historical narratives linked by butterflies and family bonds. In 1868 Morpeth, Australia, Theodora Breckenridge has her heart set on becoming a scientific illustrator. When she catches a monarch butterfly, a species never seen in Australia, she hopes that her discovery will launch her career. Her sharp-eyed housemaid Clarrie Binks helps her find and document more monarchs. One day, while Clarrie's infant son Charlie is in the care of a midwife, an unidentified woman abducts him. Charlie is swiftly and safely recovered, but the woman is not apprehended. In a parallel narrative set in 1922, Charlie's orphaned daughter, Verity Binks, is an aspiring journalist in Sydney. She supplements her freelance income with a commission to write a history of the Treadwell Foundation, a private home for unwed mothers and adoption agency in the city. In the foundation's office, Verity finds a striking watercolor of a monarch butterfly with a reference to Morpeth in a handwritten note. Her curiosity piqued, she travels to Morpeth, where she uncovers connections between Treadwell and her family's past, along with hints of Treadwell's unsavory adoption practices. Cooper melds fictional lives, scientific history, and social issues into a compassionate story. This will please fans of historicals with smart women protagonists.
