The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison

Still on a bit of the serial killer thing, here is another book that caught my attention (that Amazon recommended to me).

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...

You can purchase the book here: The Butterfly Garden (The Collector Trilogy Book 1)

This book was very creepy. Nothing too overtly graphic (though there were some graphic parts), but the whole concept was a total creep fest. Maya is a victim of the Gardener a man who collects (kidnaps) beautiful girls and tattoos butterflies onto them. He them preserves them. He keeps them locked up in his garden for YEARS. The crazy thing is that he truly believes that he loves all of them, i mean outside of the rapeyness of it all, he is rather gentle and caring when it comes to their well being and what they like (as far as hobbies are concerned).

You learn all about this garden while Maya is being interrogated by the police. I had a hard time really buying into the fact that they thought she was guilty of anything... even they seemed to have a hard time buying into it, and maybe that was the point. But I found that the more she talked about the garden and her life there, the more I got sucked into it. Maya does talk about her life before being a living butterfly, but that didn't hold my attention as closely as all the rest of it.

I am definitely looking out for the next book in the series. I would give this book a solid four stars. I am glad I read it.