Thank you to Harper Muse and NetGalley for an advanced audio copy of The Butterfly Collector by Tea Cooper.

Tea Cooper uses dual timelines to tell a mysterious tale centered around family tragedy, a missing child, and a drawing of a butterfly. In 1868, Theodora Breckenridge is living with her sisters in Morpeth after the devastating loss of their parents and brother at sea. Theodora is the quiet sister who would rather spend time collecting and sketching butterflies than being presented in society in order to find a husband. When Theodora spies a butterfly she has never seen before, she sets out to discover more about it with the help of her suitor and her maid, Clarrie. However, Clarrie's life takes a devastating turn and Theodora must abandon her botanical discovery in order to make a more important discovery that hits close to home.

The second timeline follows an aspiring journalist, Verity Banks, who stumbles across a mystery when she receives an anonymous package in the mail containing a butterfly costume and an invitation to the Sydney Artists Masquerade Ball. This event lands her a lucrative opportunity to write a piece on the Treadwell Foundation, a charity supporting unwed mothers and their babies. Her research into this organization leads her down a tragic path that will change the lives of three families forever, including her own.

This was a very interesting story, and it was a very enjoyable audiobook. The title is a little deceptive because, while Cooper does create a connection between the butterfly drawing, the "collecting" process is only mentioned briefly. It was easy for me to connect to these characters, and Cooper has created villains who are easy to dislike. I learned a lot about Australian society during the late 1800s/early 1900s, which I previously had limited knowledge of and this book has peaked my curiosity to find more stories from this time period and setting. I appreciated Cooper's take on the nefarious events surrounding the brokering of babies and how class played a role in many of these cases. Overall, I enjoyed this book and recommend it if you like period pieces that are clean, but gritty, and have a story line that carries an element of mystery.

Overall, I thought this audiobook was intriguing and peaceful. I would recommend for anyone searching for a cozy mystery or historical drama.

The setting of the novel was very interesting. The author has pretty descriptive writing which created a very vivid scene for the book to play out in. I really liked the use of the butterfly concept woven throughout the story -- it was very unique. The mix of historical elements within the mystery was also a very pleasant surprise. You can tell that the author put a lot of research into the historical elements which makes the entire story even better!

At certain scenes, the book got a little confusing with the different people and timelines when listening to the story via audiobook. Both timelines were "historical" themed, which made the distinction harder. Also, some of the parts seemed repetitive. The book could've been much shorter by cutting these sections out. For most of the book, we as readers knew where the timelines were linked and the likely scenario of the "mystery" -- it seemed less like a mystery, and more like watching the characters slowly find their way to the known outcome.

Specifically focusing on the audiobook, I really liked the narrator's voice. She was very soothing and had a nice tone to listen to. My only complaint was the couple of times where she would get extremely breathy. This starts to get a little annoying and distracting, which takes away from the story itself.

Thank you to NetGalley, the author, and Harper Muse for the ALC in exchange for an honest review.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Muse for the ARC of The Butterfly Collector!

This is a dual timeline, multiple POV story of the discovery of monarch butterflies in Australia and baby-farming. Two highly different topics, I know. In 1868 Theodora Breckenridge is grieving the loss of her parents and brother at sea when her sisters and their housekeeper decide to go to Sydney for the season. Theodora begs to remain in Morpeth, especially after discovering a butterfly she has never seen before, and her sisters eventually acquiesce to her wishes. Also in 1868, Clarrie is the maid of all work to the local minister who sacks her after finding out she is with child. Her beau, Sid Binks, works for the local paper, which is run by a friend of Theodora's, who then puts Sid and Clarrie in connection with Theodora for her to get a position in Theodora's household.

In 1922, Sid and Clarrie's granddaughter, Verity, loses her position writing for the newspaper and then receives a mysterious invitation and costume to the upcoming masquerade ball. At the ball she is put in contact with someone from the Treadwell Foundation, a group that provides lying in services to unwed mothers.

My thoughts:

The title of the story is misleading as the story is really about baby-farming across several generations and the strain on the story to tie it all together with butterflies is obvious. The interactions by the characters two generations later with the original players seems far-fetched. My biggest complaint is that the high point of action in the 1868 storyline is abandoned and solved by the 1922 storyline. Even if this is how the author wanted to tell the story, I really wish she had at least gone back to the 1868 storyline one more time. They just felt abandoned.

All-in-all it was an interesting story but not my favorite.

The narration was good. The narrator was easy to understand.

I have to say that I really enjoyed this audiobook. I have never read anything from this author before. But after listening to this audiobook. I will be adding more of this author books to my tbr. The narrator does amazing job. I didn’t feel like I wasn’t getting into this book. Yes this audiobook took me a little longer to finish. But this was to good of a book to rush through. Especially with a mystery that need to be solved. I really felt bad for the mothers who did go through things like this in those times. And learning about a certain butterfly that made its way to Australia. That was so interesting. Had me googling that particular butterfly mentioned in this book. I went in not knowing to much about this book. I mean that cover alone is beautiful. And the fact that this is historical fiction. Won me over wanting to listen to this book. I enjoyed the two different POV and the different timelines. These two female characters are strong women. Never giving up on on story that needed to be wrote or trying to raise a family. So many fun and interesting characters in this book. I definitely want to get my own physical copy when this book is to be released. This book was nothing of boring. New part of the mystery on a different chapter.
I highly recommend this audiobook. This definitely a 2023 favorite audiobook. A book never to forget. And thank you the author and netgalley for the opportunity. This book does release on November 28,2023
My review will be posted everywhere I can leave a review. Definitely worth a read.

The Butterfly Collector by author Tea Cooper, could not hold my interest and I loved the synopsis. I would definitely check this out if you like this kind of novel.

This book was a did not finish for me at about the 25% mark.

Thank you for the opportunity

I found this novel to be fairly interesting, albeit a bit slow and somewhat confusing at times. The character development was weak for the most part. I never really understood how the butterfly collector piece connected to the illegal adoption piece. The narrator of the audio version was very pleasant to listen to with her lovely Aussie accent, but I had a hard time keeping track of which character was speaking because she didn't really change pitch or tone for different characters.

Thank you to NetGalley for the ARC.

I really enjoyed this historical fiction/mystery. The weaving timelines kept the intrigue at just the right level for me. I love how the characters all ended up fitting together across history, and the author's note at the end explaining what was fact based and what was entirely fictional was interesting.

My only problem with this book was with the narrator. She did not change up the voices between characters at all, so I was lost for a little while when the POV shifted or the timeline jumped between past and present. I could also hear her breathing, but that is a *me problem* for sure. I think this audio could have benefitted from at least two narrators to help with the timeline shift.

Thanks to Netgalley for this book. This was my first time trying an audio book, and I'm not a big fan. I don't have any complaints about the Netgalley app which was easy to use. It's more that I'm a visual person and listening to the book did not give me the experience reading one does. I'm too enamored by the written word to enjoy it when someone else reads it to me. I need to see the words to experience them. That way I can linger over phrases and savor the feelings the words evoke in me.

I can't say whether I'd be giving this book 5 stars if I'd read it. All I can do is give the audiobook 4 stars because that's what I received.

Thank you for this advanced audio recording of The Butterfly Collector. This book is a dual timeline story. It started out as 3 separate stories and I was not sure that I would like it. As the book continued and the story took shape, I really started to like it. This was the part historical fiction and part family mystery with an undertone of butterflies.

This story mainly follows three women, Theodora and Clarrie in the 1800's and Verity in the 1920's. Theodora is trying to be recognized for finding a rare butterfly species while Clarrie is a maid and young mother trying to make her life work. Verity is trying to be a writer and uncovers many different stories worth being told.

As the book went on, I really enjoyed this story. The audiobook would have been better with more than one reader. The conversations often became hard to follow when it switched from men to women talking. Other than that, I really liked the character development and the storyline and would recommend this book.

I am grateful to Netscape and Harper Muse for permitting me to listen to the audiobook version of The Butterfly Collector.
From the gorgeous cover to the history of the monarch butterfly as it pertains to Australia, through the sprightly reading by Emily Barrett, Tea Cooper’s story is immersed in Australian history. It begins in Sidney in 1922, Verity Binks, daughter of a deceased war hero and granddaughter of a newspaperman, wants to be a journalist. She handles the classifieds at the Sidney Arrow, her grandfather Sid’s old post, and occasionally gets to publish a ‘feminine’ column about ´feminine trifles’. While Verity bridles against these limitations, she contents herself that she can at least earn her own living, if at half the wages men earn.
Her hopes are dashed, however, when a government decree to address the unemployment of veterans passes, and she is obliged to relinquish her place. Like most other women so displaced, she puts up a brave patriotic front by publicly agreeing it is the right thing to do. No doubt also like many of her newly jobless sisters, she is very worried about how she will survive, since most women needed their pay, and also frustrated that even the vote didn’t guarantee women’s right to work if they chose to.

But Verity Binks comes from hard-scrabble working class people, both her grandfather Sid and her equally loved Grandmother Clarrie. Her grandmother died in the Spanish flu pandemic, with the devastated Sid closely behind. They bequeathed to her the small terrace house they had bought in Sidney after abruptly leaving their home in Morpeth, the small town where her father Charlie was born, and where they had been staying with their benefactor, Theodora Breckenridge, for whom Clarrie did domestic service. But she also helped Theodora to collect and paint butterflies, as she strove to document a new species—the monarch. In 1868, Theodora became the first lepidopterist to spot the species, thought to have migrated from the Americas,

After many years during which they were believed to have died out, Verity spots one in her own backyard. She too becomes fascinated and starts her own research into its history, hoping to publish a serious piece in the Arrow, whose editor promised to look at anything she submitted as something of a consolation. Doing so, she slowly unravels her own family secrets, especially concerning Theodora and the Breckenridge family, and how these connect with her grandparents and her father. She uncovers the involvement of her own family and Theodora’s with a nefarious and still operating baby farming scheme that had persisted without penalty for half a century.
In a system that quickly dismissed women’s testimony and protected the wealthy under rigid defamation laws constraining the news media, this was both difficult and dangerous.
The baby farming story is not fictional, and the author makes her version historically factual in most details. Nor, of course, is it uniquely Australian. It happened wherever pregnant girls found themselves abandoned and, for lack of money or to spare their families shame, gave their babies into the care of unscrupulous minders. It happened when young women, married and unmarried, had to work and thought their babies were well looked after, even as the minders who took much of their pay were drugging them, killing them and calling it ‘failure to thrive’, or adopting them out to rich childless parents without their mothers’ knowledge or permission. Few were ever reunited.
This is a sad but hopeful story, with Verity Binks in the forefront of ending what was in effect a system of lucrative serial killing and human trafficking. The family mysteries and layered timelines and the Australian setting are very well done, and I’m happy to recommend this book to those interested in the plight of women and children, rich and poor, not all that long ago.

I listened to the audiobook, but it did not hold my interest. It started out promising, but I stopped listening to it one day and never went back to it. I guess it just wasn't for me or I wasn't in the mood to appreciate it. I would be willing to give it a try again in the future. Maybe I would like the text version better.
Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is my second Tea Cooper novel and definitely not my last. With two strong women protagonists and a dual timeline story that twists and turns, as well as a heartbreaking social issue, I could not stop listening.

Emily Barney’s pacing and intonation were beautiful. Her voice makes for easy listening. However, there were too many times I was not sure which character was speaking and had to back up the audiobook to find out. As I listen to hundreds of audiobooks in the course of a year, this was definitely an issue. A full cast or multiple voice actors would have been a pleasure.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the chance to read this arc in exchange for an honest review.

Tea Cooper’s newest book is just as well written and researched as her others, but The Butterfly Collector lacks something. The characters are not as fleshed out and the plot isn’t as well woven as other Cooper books. There is no reason not to read it, but if you have limited time, read another one by the author.

Many thanks to Harper Muse via NetGalley for this audio ARC given in exchange for an honest review.

The Butterfly Collector is an historical fiction piece that takes place in the early 1900s in Australia during and after WW1. It is a Women's Fiction piece that focuses on a multi-generational story focusing on the women within, how they relate to one another, and how the family's journey unfolds and interweaves with other families. There is a but of a mystery aspect and some rather triggering topics so be sure to check your TW here. It references but does not go into detail about the Palestinian conflict/British Mandate. Considering current events, this was a bit eerie for me and troublesome....though the author references Australia's Indigenous populations, she fails to acknowledge the effect British Mandate had on the area she references many died in- including her father. In fact the book glosses over the colonialization, and revers the men who fought in it. For me, it was too relevant to be overlooked- even though the story is far removed from those events except as they have an effect on the characters within and their lives, it was simply another example for me of how we in the Western World ignore inconvenient truths that don't have a direct impact on our own lives.
That being said, the rest of the story was well done and did delve into a very distinct problem in the history of Australia and the Western World when it came to unwed mothers in our history. I enjoyed the feminist aspects, the liberal ideals the characters held, and their determination and resilience. I simply can't seem to get over the whitewashing of the history of a war and occupation we are still witnessing today as an entire nation is irradiated with global support.

The Butterfly collector is a historical mystery with two timelines that don’t seem to have much in common until the very end where all is wrapped up and explained. It is well written and kept my attention. The story also has some interesting information regarding butterflies and how they have made their way around the world. It was a stretch to combine butterfly collecting and research with ‘baby farming’ but somehow the author managed to do it to create an interesting story worth reading. Recommended.

Many thanks to Net Gallery for an opportunity to listen to and review this book.

Not the content I was expecting.

The history was very interesting. The characters were pretty likable.

However, I am no sure if it is because I listened and did not read, but the audio was confusing the timelines for me, it was very hard to follow what was happening to who. I don’t feel the family back story was set up enough for me to understand though - that is what my gut is telling me. I also felt there was just too much happening, and it was hard to get into.

I also felt like the story was slow, I couldn’t get invested into it within the last 70% of the book. This didn’t feel like a thriller still the end.

I had never read any of Tea Cooper’s books before listening to The Butterfly Collector, but I certainly will from herein out. Set in two different time periods, Set in Australia, The Butterfly Collector focuses on three women: Theodora and Clarrie in the 1860s and Verity, Clarrie’s granddaughter in the early 1920’s. The plot is the star of this wonderful book. The story pulled me in from the start and then pulled me along through the many twists and turns of this complex story. there are a few obvious clues that the characters should have seen and there is a little over-reliance on coincidence, but it hardly matters. Fans of historical fiction will love The Butterfly Collector.

The Butterfly Collector is a historical fiction novel that switches between two characters in 1868 and a character in 1922. It's unclear at first how they are all connected, but we know it all comes back to a monarch butterfly. I feel like I learned quite a bit about the history of "baby farming" in Australia, as well as the early history of monarch butterfly migration from the Americas to Australia. However, the Butterfly Collector is a strange title for this book. The far more engaging plot line was the baby farming. There was a lot going on in this book and it felt a little clunky, putting it all together. I LOVED listening to the narrator's lilting accent, but also found the editing to be a bit uneven for the audiobook version. Overall, I give this book a 3.5, rounded up to 4.

This was a really interesting look at a social issue impacting Australia in the 1800's to early 1900's. A young couple deals with an unplanned, out of wedlock pregnancy and the ripples of this decision span many years. It is an interesting unravelling of a very intriguing story and I sometimes got a little lost about who was who and where we were at (common with an audiobook for me I think) but the ending landed well.

This was an interesting listen. The story was a tough subject, baby sellers in the late 1800's and early 1900's in Australia. The book takes place in two time periods as a granddaughter tries to find the truth of her past.

The story is good, but heartbreaking. The narrator did a pretty good job. It was sometimes hard to follow who was speaking, the book changed perspectives without hunting at a change. It kept me listening, and wanting to know how much was real.