The Butterfly Collector - Tea Cooper - ★★.¾

AUTHOR: Tea Cooper

NARRATOR: Emily Barrett

GENRE: Historical Mystery

RATING: 2.75 stars.

In a Nutshell: A historical mystery focusing on two disparate plot points: a woman with a fascination for butterflies, and a mystery concerning Treadwell Foundation and its alleged focus on “disgraced young women and their babies.” Having either of these would have been fine. But the two topics don’t mesh well, creating a disjointed effect. The title is misleading.

Story Synopsis:

1922, Sydney. Twenty-five-year-old aspiring journalist Verity Binks gets an anonymous parcel containing a gorgeous butterfly costume and an invite to a prestigious masquerade ball. There, she is approached by Mr. Treadwell to write a history of the Treadwell Foundation. While digging into its past, Verity discovers a shady mystery that seems to go back more than fifty years. Can a young journalist take down a wealthy and powerful man?

1868, Morpeth. Twenty-one-year-old Theodora is still in mourning after the death of her parents and her brother at sea. Though staying with her three sisters, she prefers being in solitude and working on her art. Her inspiration comes from her friends, the respected Scott sisters, who are making a name for themselves as nature illustrators. When she spots a butterfly that has never been seen before in Australia, she realises that she has the chance to make a name for herself in the scientific community. Hence she takes help from her friend Redmond and her maid Clarrie to locate the butterfly. Does Theodora get the credit for her discovery?

The story comes to us mostly from the third person perspectives of Verity, Theodora, and Clarrie.

Bookish Yays:

ꕤ The Australian setting and its use in the plot. While many of the place names were quite new to me, I still liked how the author described the locations, helping me to visualise them better.

ꕤ The details related to the butterfly – its unexpected presence in Australia, its habits, its description. It was awesome to read about a historical female character with an interest in lepidoptery. (I didn’t like the description of how butterflies were pinned in order to study them better. There is a repeated emphasis on how “they didn’t feel a thing”, which didn’t alleviate my discomfort. But this is more of a ME problem.)

ꕤ The details about the “baby farming” in historical Australia. It is an important topic, and highlighted well in this novel.

ꕤ While there are two unexpected romantic relationships in the novel, I appreciate how the author didn’t change focus to highlight the romance more. The attention stays on the main plot than on the sparks flying between the characters.

ꕤ The author’s note at the end, detailing the facts behind the fictional plot. I love it when historical fiction authors provide such elaborate notes about their writing choices rather than leaving readers to wonder what was real and what wasn’t.

ꕤ The above also highlights how well the author has researched the historical facts. The story has an undertone of authenticity when it comes to the factual elements.

ꕤ While I am not usually a fan of covers with “ladies with their back to the camera”, I find this one gorgeous, and apt for the butterfly collector angle of the plot, though not for the whole book. Actually, the audiobook cover (pictured below) is even more gorgeous, but that too doesn't suit the story well.

Bookish Nays:

🐛 The title is wrong for this book. It led me to believe that the focus of the book would be on Theodora and her interest in “butterfly collection.” However, this is a relatively minor angle in the novel, and Theodora isn’t the sole main character at all. I don’t understand why the title had to focus on her; it sets absolutely wrong expectations from the story.

🐛 The link between the two timelines is quite clear almost from the start, much before the characters even discover the connection. We just have to wait for the characters to catch up to what we already know. In fact, most of the mystery isn’t a mystery to us. Better not to read this as a “historical mystery” but as a “historical drama.”

🐛 Having two historical timelines is also a little confusing in this case. Except for the characters, there isn’t much to distinguish the two timelines as both feel “historical” in the same way. Only the characters help you remember which timeline is going on.

🐛 That said, the story sometimes gets confusing, not just because of the number of characters, but because so many of them are related through blood or acquaintance. The connections across the characters is quite farfetched. Moreover, only the main characters are sketched decently. The rest are used only as and when the plot needs them to do something, so their development is somewhat hazy. One of the characters has an abrupt turnaround in behaviour TWICE!

🐛 The progress of the story is quite slow. In the first 30-40%, there is hardly anything happening. The GR blurb goes much beyond the halfway mark, and even I had to resort to writing more than the initial 10-15% in my synopsis because there’s nothing concrete in the plot at that stage. The first half is more like a backstory to Theodora’s life and Verity’s investigation, while the second half suddenly changes track and focusses more on the mystery.

🐛 The plot progress is a bit too convenient at times. There are abrupt developments to incorporate a twist. Clues come up exactly when the characters are looking for them. The motivation of the person gifting the butterfly costume was quite flimsy. I wouldn’t call all this ‘lazy writing’ because the research does indicate the hard work behind the story. But maybe the author is better at dramatic stories than mysteries.

🐛 The finale was a huge letdown. There is an extended info-dump in the penultimate chapter, filling in some of the blanks of the “mystery”. Then all of a sudden, there is an epilogue, seemingly springing out of nowhere. But even this elaborate detailing doesn’t clarify the missing gaps. There are many unanswered questions about crucial plot points, with the death of certain key characters leaving us with no explanation of their motivation except for some guesswork by those investigating the past.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 10 hrs 43 min, is narrated by Emily Barrett. She has a lovely voice, but her narration didn’t work that well for me. She reads quite slowly, but worse for me, she has a ‘breathy’ voice. Even when I sped up the narration, I could hear her breathing, which was very distracting. Moreover, she didn’t change her pitch or tone between male and female characters, so keeping track of the speaker was tricky. One positive was that she didn’t have an overly strong Aussie accent, so understanding her was a breeze.

All in all, this was partly a case of expectations going awry. I went into the book, prepared to get a historical story about a butterfly collector. I didn’t expect a mystery that wasn’t related to butterflies at all. Though the subject of the investigation was quite serious and also based in facts, perhaps it would have been better either to have the story focus on just the mystery aspect and ignoring the butterfly-related aspects (or maybe vice versa), OR to change the title and cover to something that better suited the mystery-related elements.

This is my first book by this renowned Aussie author, and I am not dissuaded against trying more of her works after this novel. Hoping for a better experience the next time around.

Recommended with reservations to light mystery or historical drama readers as a one-time read.

My thanks to NetGalley, Harlequin Australia for the DRC, and Harper Muse for the ALC of “The Butterfly Collector”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.