DISCLOSURE: Thank you to Blue Box Press, Author Buzz via Netgalley for providing a digital ARC of The Butterfly Room by Lucinda Riley for review. Full of her trademark mix of unforgettable characters and heart-breaking secrets, The Butterfly Room is a spellbinding, multi-generational story from Lucinda Riley, bestselling author of the Seven Sisters series. They're dead! They're dead! They're dead! How could he have lied to me?' I shouted in between sobs. I saw Daddy give Maman a look, but she was reading her letters over her cup of café au lait and didn’t seem to notice. Maman always got lots of letters from France, all written on very thin paper, even thinner than a butterfly wing, which suited Maman, because everything about her was so delicate and slender. It was around this time that she married the actor Owen Whittaker whom she had met while making a television commercial for a DIY store.

the dress—a shimmering cream 1930s vintage piece that covered the lumps and bumps that age had brought, and didn’t make her look like a ship in full sail. My Review:It smelt of polish, and light illuminated the circular walls that surrounded the windows Daisy had just cleaned. On the wall directly in front of me hung what must be an entire extended family of Red Admiral butterflies. They were lined up in rows of four behind glass enclosed by a gilt frame. I did like most of the characters (ones you were supposed to like) but the love scenes were cringey and the men seemed sleazy or desparate.

Lucinda Riley divided her time between homes in north Norfolk and the south of France, and also built a six-bedroom holiday home on a beach on the Thai island of Ko Chang. Lucinda Riley (May She Rest In Peace) is the Queen of storytelling. Every single one of her books I have read has been incredibly engaging; She could make the most mundane story a joy to read! Not that this story is at all mundane - far from it! It was followed the next year by Auf Wiedersehen, Pet, and among her stage highlights in 1987 she gave a charming performance as Mary, the young heroine in a musical version of The Secret Garden at the King’s Head, Islington – though at 21 she was rather too old for the role of the orphaned child. She penned her first novel aged 23 and went on to publish more than 20 books which were translated into nearly 40 languages and sold more than 30 million copies around the world. The Butterfly Room is a sweeping multi-generational saga of long held secrets, devastating despair and second chances. Riley’s writing is rich and engrossing. Her characters are convincing.Lucinda had two children with Owen Whittaker, juggling family responsibilities with her burgeoning career as a novelist, but by the end of the decade and after eight novels, her marriage had broken down. Then a face appears from the past – Freddie, her first love, who abandoned her and left her heartbroken fifty years ago. Already struggling to cope with her son’s inept business dealings, and the sudden reappearance of her younger son after ten years in Australia, Posy is reluctant to trust in Freddie’s renewed affection. And, unbeknown to Posy, Freddie – and Admiral House – has a devastating secret to reveal . . . Oh my darling girl!" said patronisingly by every man to every woman regardless of age or situation. In 2000 she married Stephen Riley, a businessman who owned the Denby pottery company, but her marriage coincided with a downturn in her literary fortunes after controversy over her novel Seeing Double (1999), about an investigative journalist who uncovers a secret about the Royal family, led to her losing her publishing deal. The Butterfly Room is a spellbinding, multigenerational story full of heartbreaking secrets, from Lucinda Riley, international bestselling author of the Seven Sisters series.