The Butterfly Garden (The Collector Trilogy Book 1) by Dot Hutchison
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…
GISELLE’S THOUGHTS:
I picked up The Butterfly Garden unsure as to whether I would love it or hate it because it’s not a genre I read on a day-to-day, but after seeing it be compared to a Criminal Minds episode I knew I had to pick it up, and I could not put it down.
This book is without a doubt, incredibly disturbing, but it was also such a compelling read. If you’re a sensitive person I would not recommend this book because some of the content is incredibly hard to read through. The book seemed so surreal but it was even worse to think about how things like this can and have happened in real life.
All the characters in this story were so complex and engaging (even the creepiest one of all), that I could seriously not put this book down, even when I wanted to. And-oh man, did I want to put it down at times and be like “NOPE, can’t do it anymore”, but I had to know what happened in The Garden and if you start this book, you will want to know too.
The Butterfly Garden is disturbing, compelling, and worth every penny.
WARNING: This book has very strong & explicit content (scenes of rape, violence, etc.) that may be triggering to some people.
