The Butterfly Collector by Tea Cooper is a historical novel set across two timelines. In 1922, Verity Binks, a recently unemployed stenographer, receives a mysterious invitation to a ball and is drawn into a journalistic investigation involving the Treadwell Foundation, which supports unmarried mothers. Her curiosity about the foundation's origins leads her to uncover a disturbing adoption racket.

The narrative also weaves back to 1868, where Clarrie, a pregnant maid, struggles with her circumstances, and Theodora Breckenridge, a nature illustrator, yearns to document a rare butterfly rather than engage in society. Their stories intertwine with Verity's as she travels to Morpeth to dig deeper into the past, meeting Arlo Kendall, the current editor of The Morpeth Want.

Cooper's rich, evocative prose vividly portrays both Sydney's urban landscape and the Australian bush, while the dual narratives explore themes of motherhood, societal challenges, and the pursuit of truth. The suspenseful and dramatic unfolding of events keeps readers engaged until the end. The audio version is narrated by Emily Barrett, enhancing the immersive experience of this captivating historical fiction.

I really enjoy reading Tea Cooper. Her stories are filled with wonderful characters and intriguing storylines. She brings just a sprinkling of history to each. This one had a juicy mystery and a delightful dual timeline.

Unfortunately, this one didn’t work for me. The title and blurb pulled me in, but I struggled very much to care about the plot at all. It felt disjointed and slow, taking way too long to come together.

This novel was well written between present day and many years ago. I enjoyed it.

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review.

A beautifully told story and a wonderful piece of historical fiction set in Australian. The narrator did a very nice job with this book. Thank you for allowing me to have a complimentary copy of the audiobook in exchange for an honest review,

Bezaubernde Geschichte auf zwei Zeitebenen, hervorragend eingesprochen mit verschiedenen Stimmen. Fesselnd und unterhaltsam, eine klare Empfehlung!

I do love historical fiction books but unfortunately I realllly struggled getting into this book. I started it before it came out and DNFed it. I just came back to it months later with a fresh mind and have DNFed it again.

I felt very confused with the dual timelines and found the story hard to keep me engaged.

Thank you Netgalley for the opportunity to listen to this ARC, nonetheless!!

The Butterfly Collector by Tea Cooper had well-developed characters and a plot that was engaging. This audiobook was a great read, and the narrator was perfect. I highly recommend!

**Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for the audio-ARC. All opinions expressed are voluntary and my own.**

There is a lot to appreciate about this audiobook, but I had trouble focusing on it. I am going to come back to it as a physical book instead.

Great book with characters you care about and includes a history lesson as well. Well written and narration was good. I give this a 4 star rating. I definitely recommend this book.

The Butterfly Collector is a historical fiction story set in multiple timelines, 1868 Morpeth, and set in Sydney during 1922.

I thought the writing was so lyrical and descriptive, with elements of mystery and great characters. I listened to the audiobook format, which I thought was great, and found her performance to really bring the reader into the historical timelines.

*many thanks to Harper Muse and Netgalley for the gifted copy for review.

I DNF. A book with two timelines which initially appear to have nothing to do with each other yet eventually twist and turn together in amazing ways. It took to long as an audiobook to have the twist tie the stories together. Made me sad after reading reviews just lost interes.

Thank you NetGalley.

1868- Theodora and her sisters are in mourning after their parents and brother were lost at sea. But whereas her sisters want to go find society husbands, she wishes to stay on the family country estate pursuing her aspirations as a nature illustrator. And her dreams begin to come true when she discovers a butterfly never seen before in Australia.

1868- Clarrie is pregnant out of wedlock with few options. She loses her job, and once her baby is born, has to trust someone to take care of him while she goes and works as a maid for Theodora searching for that rare butterfly. But then her son goes missing and everything is up in the air.

1922- Verity desires to become a journalist, but losing her job at the paper so they can open jobs for more men. But the same day she is canned, things take an interesting turn when she is sent an invitation to the Sydney Artists Masquerade Ball along with an elaborate butterfly costume. She doesn't know who sent them, but she is willing to go to the ball and try and find out. There, she makes a connection and lands a commission to write the history of a charity that supports disgraced young women and their babies. But as Verity digs, she begins to uncover a complex mystery that goes back decades. What will she uncover, and who will the truth effect?
_____
Although the title makes it seem like butterflies are central to the story, they are only a subplot in this book that is much more about family and how families are made and maintained. This book has a lot happening in it and little has to do with butterflies.

The first half of this book is slow. It has a lot to set up in both of the timelines to get us to the second half which moves pretty quickly. A lot happens in the second half that you have to really pay attention to get all the layers of the stories. Then the ending is a bit of a let down because there is no grand conclusion. Everything just kinds of wraps up and ends. The pay off wasn't worth it.

That being said, even though the pacing of this book is a bit of a mess, I still found it interesting. There was a lot happening and I would have liked much more information about the butterflies, but I was engaged and wanted to get to the conclusion (even though it wasn't as satisfying as I would have hoped).

This was my IRL book club's book for March. It definitely led to some robust discussions and made the book more multifaceted for us as readers. This is a good pick for a buddy read or a book club read.
_____
I received a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

An interesting story, but maybe just not the right book for me.

I struggled a bit with this one initially, after trying both the written word and audio I ended up DNFing.

For the right audience this would be a 4 to 5 star read.

Tea Cooper's The Butterfly Collector flutters between two intriguing storylines: Theodora Breckenridge, an aspiring artist in 1868 Australia on the hunt for a rare butterfly, and Verity Newton, a journalist in 1922 Sydney investigating a seemingly benevolent foundation that supports unwed mothers and their babies.
While the individual stories were enjoyable, the foreshadowing was a bit heavy-handed, leaving little room for genuine surprise when the timelines finally intersect. This predictability weakens the central mystery, which could have benefited from more suspense.
The novel's strength lies in its historical details. Cooper paints a vivid picture of 19th century Morpeth and 1920’s Sydney. Readers with a particular interest in Australian history will find themselves engrossed in the settings. However, this world-building comes at a cost. The first half of the book moves slowly, taking time to establish the characters and their surroundings.

I wanted to like this book much more than I did. I love historical mysteries set in multiple timelines, however, this storyline was slow, the mystery fell flat and everything was wrapped up too quickly and abruptly at the end, with questions still left answered. It was odd. I also thought the title was misleading since the butterfly collecting was a very minor part of the story. The narrator was a little breathy and it was distracting. I will read more by Tea Cooper, but was ultimately disappointed with this book.

My thanks to NetGalley for an advance copy of this audiobook.

I really enjoyed this book. I truly hadn't realized that the baby trade was so prominent across the globe.
I enjoyed the two characters and their stories and how they converged.
The narrator was great and I enjoyed listening to her.

The Butterfly Collector is a historical fiction is a tale about a missing baby, an illustration of a butterfly and a twisting mystery. I enjoyed this listening to this story.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for a free copy of this book in exchange for my honest review

This book was a wonderfully-woven tale told in two timelines: one of a woman more interested in entomology than finding a husband, and jumping forward in time to a girl who receives a mysterious butterfly costume and an invite to a ball.

As story one gets into the young woman's discovery of a butterfly never documented prior, her close friend and maid has her baby son go missing. In the later story, the girl's invite to the ball leads her to investigating a journalist piece about the devious workings of a foundation that helps disgraced young mothers.

All in all, I thought it was a really well-written book that keeps you rooting for these characters, in finding justice and for women to get the credit they deserve!

Two stories run side by side in this book. One is in distant history and the other is a little closer in history, but still a century away.
Theodora is a talented artist whose dream is to draw nature in scientific works like her neighbors the Scott sisters do in their father's books. But her family is not interested in her being an artist, they want her to marry rich. Her maid, who has recently given birth to a son, leaves the son with the babysitter while she and her husband are at work, but somehow every time she goes to see him, the baby is either sick or asleep, or the babysitter won't let him stay with the boy at all .
Fifty years later, Verity works as an assistant at a newspaper, even though she really wants to write articles like her grandfather did. But when her grandfather died, she was given no other opportunities than an assistant job, even if her articles were good and popular. And then she is invited to an arts ball and given a story that takes her into the world of a very cruel business.
Verity knows she's digging into something with dark consequences, but she never imagined how closely this long-ago story would touch her family.

An interesting historical story with both beautiful nature and cruel human nature. An interesting read!