Told in alternating chapters in dual timelines, this story follows three young women with very different backgrounds whose stories eventually connect revealing long kept family secrets. The audiobook is narrated by Emily Barrett who lent a calm, compelling tone to all three women’s stories. Each chapter is headed by the date and location easily placing the reader in the timeline with each character.

In 1922 Sydney, the men have returned from war leaving Verity without the job that she loves writing for The Arrow following in her grandfather Sid’s footsteps just as she discovers a career-making story. I found Verity to be a tenacious young woman and an ambitious writer though at times she was too trusting of others and made rash decisions that she sometimes came to regret. I enjoyed her storyline as she followed the clues given to her from the anonymous costume reminiscent of a Monarch butterfly and the article she is commissioned to write about the Treadwell Foundation to acquire new sponsors for their philanthropic endeavors to assist young women in the family way to the suspicions her investigation uncovers and the subsequent connection to her own family.

The alternating storylines follow two women in 1868 Morpeth. Clarrie works for the local reverend but finds herself out of a job when she reveals she is going to have a baby with her man Sid, though they are not yet married. While looking for a new position, Clarrie stays with a local midwife who agrees to look after her and the baby in exchange for labor and payment from Sid’s meager paycheck from the local newspaper and other odd jobs. Clarrie is a hard worker and a determined and loving mother, though she does defer to Sid at times against her instincts. The other storyline follows Theodora who stays behind when her aunt and sister journey to Sidney to look for an elusive butterfly and work on her artistic endeavors. She hires Clarrie as a chaperone and to help around the home and while instrumental in the search for Clarrie’s son when he is kidnapped, I often found myself wishing for more of her story about the elusive Monarchs.

Recommended to historical fiction readers interested in the horrors of baby farming and not for the butterflies.

Thank you to NetGalley and Harper Muse for a copy provided for an honest review.

My first book by this author and there is much to be said. This is a well written book with interesting characters and a lot of intriguing historical fact. The author weaves people's lives together in tricky ways and the reader needs to stay alert to remember who is related to whom all the time! I did wish that Verity and Arlo's relationship had been given a little more room to develop. This story takes on a dual timeline as an historical novel. 1869 Morpeth, a small river town close to The Hunter Valley, Theodora Breckenridge is in morning after loss her parents and older brother in a ship wreck, but her three sisters decide it is time to make a trip to Sydney but Theodora is much happier staying at home and working on her research about butterflies and do her painting, 1922 Sydney, Verity Binks strives to become a correspondent and follow in her father and grandfathers footsteps. She is sent a beautiful butterfly costume and an invitation to the Sydney Artist Masquerade Ball anonymously on the day she has just lost her job at The Sydney Arrow newspaper. Verity meets Mr. Treadwell and is asked to write an article about the history of The Treadwell Foundation, an institute that supports and helps young girls in trouble. The story leads to the underlying theme of people taking advantage of those who find themselves in trouble either for their own or others gain. The book is well researched and interesting perspective upon the research of butterflies and how they travel as well as transform.

My thanks to Netgalley, the author and the publisher for the opportunity.

Thanks to Netgalley and Harper Muse for an advanced audiobook copy in exchange for this honest review.

4.5stars.
The narrator is great, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the audiobook (nearly 11hours). The narrator's accent wasn't too strong and I really enjoyed the sound of her voice. I truly enjoyed that I found both timelines so calm and relaxing to listen to.

The title is misleading as it gives the idea that the butterfly collector is the main angle (and character) of the book, however it most certainly isn't. This didn't really affect my enjoyment of the book, but is why my rating is 4.5stars rather than 5 as it gives the reader the wrong expectations.

I absolutely loved this book, I was totally invested in both storylines and characters. There is just enough description to help you paint a picture, but not too much that you get bored of detail, which was great considering it's set in 1868 and 1922, in Australia. Occasionally I got lost with the dates and timelines, but eventually I used the characters to help place myself in the correct one.

I loved how the author touched upon different aspects throughout the story: collecting a rare species of butterfly, the history of baby farming, unexpected relationships. (However these relationships didn't lead to too much romance and the author religiously stuck to the drama - this was a major plus for me).

The mystery really kicks in in the second half of the book, whereas the first half is all backstory to help the reader understand once the mystery begins. I do wish the ending was spread out a bit more, maybe giving more detail instead of tying everything up in the final couple chapters and then jumping to the epilogue, but that's just a personal preference.

I will be looking up Coopers other books.

This is an interesting historical fiction novel - based on factual events, dual timeline, dual subject (Baby farming and Monarch butterfly discovery), based in Australia. While reading the book, my interest grew, and of course, I went down a rabbit hole in search of baby farming in the early 1900’s. Such an awful crime! A nightmare, foremost for the birth mom/dad, and secondly for we genealogists!
Thanks, and my unbiased review, goes to #Netgalley and #HarperMuse for this advance copy of #TheButterflyCollector. This novel also helps check a box on #Bookish 2023 #Netgalleybingo. Thanks!

Looking at the title you would think this is a book about butterflies. And butterflies do play a part in the story. The story is set in Australia in two timelines, 1868 and 1922. Both timelines are connected.
Verity Binks, a wanna-be-journalist, gets a mysterious package and an invitation to the Sydney Artists Masquerade Ball. At the ball she gets an enticing proposition to write the history of the Treadwell Foundation. This foundation “helped” young women who were “disgraced.”
Verity discovers a dark secret about the foundation. Babies go missing. The question is: will Verity be able to solve the mystery?
I really enjoyed this book. It was well written, and I could tell that the author had done a fantastic job with the research.
I listened to the audio book. The narrator was fair, but didn’t change her voice much among the different characters.

I really enjoyed this book. It's about Verity who is doing research for an article, but also about Theodora who discovered a butterfly. This book has got multiple point of views set in different times periods. At first that made it hard to keep track of who was who. Though when I switched from audio to ebook it became easier. I like how the story lines are intertwined. Well written and interesting characters. The story if fast paced and was interesting to read. The narration of the audiobook was very good, but because of the multiple story and time lines it was a little hard to keep track.

I received this book from NetGalley in return for an honest review

I listened to the audiobook of this title.

This book was well written, and the story was an interesting one. That said, I feel that it was much longer than it really needed to be to tell the story. I found it VERY hard to connect with, and the audiobook narration made it difficult to follow, because there were no differences in the tone or presentation as it jumped back and forth between time periods. A 2nd narrator here would have really made all the difference.

Because I couldn't connect, I jumped in and out of this one for weeks. I tried so hard to connect, but it took 100% of my focus to keep the story straight, and the exhaustion from that left the payoff of this story feeling like a let down versus a beautiful closure.

Dear The Butterfly Collector,
Between all of your time jumps and your large cast of characters, I have to admit, I actually had to slow your audio down to a 1.5 so I could follow what was happening. It was hard to follow the three intertwined plots, and i don't think it helped that I am not familiar with Australian history and locations as well. You were an interesting story and the deeper themes of family and feminism kept me in your story. I just wish I had a better way into your story, because I couldn't connect with the time, place or characters very well.

The Butterfly Collector, by Tea Cooper, is a dual timeline novel, following Theodora Breckenridge, in 1868 Morpeth, where she is experiencing grief following the deaths of her parents and brother. While working in her mother's garden she finds a unique butterfly, and happens upon a new discovery. As she researches this new butterfly, she becomes close with a house maid, Clarrie, and is privy to her troubles in becoming pregnant out of wedlock, and not having a place to live with her soon to be husband. While her son, Charlie, is being cared for by a nanny, Clarrie and Theodora find that the baby has disappeared, causing the chase to find her son to begin.

Simultaneously, we learn about Verity Binks in 1922, following the great war. Verity finds herself left alone in the world after her relatives found their untimely deaths. Verity is working towards becoming a female journalist, when she happens upon a surprise gift and invite to an event "of the century". Upon seizing the opportunity of her invite, she finds herself in the position to write an article that will most certainly get attention. As she does more research, she finds there is so much more to her story than she initially thought, and along the way finds how she is connected to Theodora and Clarrie.

Overall, I found this an interesting story, but I will say that initially I struggled to understand the two timelines as there was not always an immediate indicator of what timeline the novel is following. Once more familiar with the names and places, it became much easier, and I was able to enjoy the novel much more. The discussion of baby-farming was interesting, and not something that I was previously familiar.

You begin this read thinking it is all about butterflies and gardens. . .it is much more, deeper and darker.

Two timelines, two places in Australia: 1868, in Morpeth, and 1922 in Sydney. Stay with it, and you'll find where they tie together, and what the missing pieces are to this well-told tale. Inspired by actual happenings, the author has created a spell-binding weave of two disparate stories that intersect, creating a worthy read.

Verity Binks reminded me of Nellie Bly, and she has the journalistic chops to follow the story back 3 generations to get to the heart of the solve.

*A sincere thank you to Tea Cooper, Harper Muse, and NetGalley for a free ARC to read and review*
#TheButterflyCollector #NetGalley

This book has an interesting historical setting and one that I was not well acquainted with. At the center of the story are two women who lived more than 50 years apart but whose lives are connected by a terrible event in the 1860s.

Verity Binks is a writer who has recently lost her job at the local newspaper due to the soldier's returning home from war. She's an interesting and relatable character who goes on a journey to discover a missing part of her family history. Verity is really the protagonist but I honestly found her story less interesting than the characters from the 1860s. Theodora, Clarrie, and Sid were the characters I wanted to spend the most time with but I found it difficult to keep track of the story because the time jumps are frequent and honestly - the book itself is just too long. I wouldn't call this a mystery - not sure why it was marketed that way - it feels more like a historical drama. There are many beautiful passages, especially in Theodora's sections, about the landscape, the beauty of Australia, and the yearning for something more - however, I really struggled with this story - both it's length and the nature of how the events were revealed. I don't think this one benefited much from having multiple points of view.

I also don't quite understand the title of the book. It wasn't really about the butterfly collector.

Finally, since the ARC I received was in audiobook format - I think it's necessary to remark on the narrator. I found that over all the narrator did a great job with the various voices. I found her easy to understand, although her pacing was a bit slow at times. However, and this might be an issue with file, I could hear her breathing much more than usual. There was a lot inhaling and exhaling coming through my headphones. Other than that - over all great job and great voice work.

Thank you to Netgalley and Harper Muse for this ARC.

Synopsis

In 1920s Sydney, Verity Binks has just been let go from her reporting job. She's not alone. Women, who were recently welcomed to the workforce to fill the slots of men who had gone to war, are now being sent home to open jobs for those men to return to. Her only chance to keep some income coming in is sell freelance stories to the paper she no longer works at and she may have just got a tip that will break a fifty year old mystery wide open. Will Verity solve the crime and get her big break? Will her editor have the courage to ruffle some prominent feathers?

My Overall Thoughts

I felt the narrator did an exceptional job with this dual timeline narrative. It is often difficult to follow multiple timelines in audiobook format, but the narrator did an exceptional job of differentiating the two.

The story itself was captivating and both timelines held up on their own. I thoroughly enjoyed this novel.

What I Didn't Love

I did find that the 1868 timeline took quite a while to get to the actual crime. It could have moved a little faster. It wasn't until past the halfway mark that the makings of a crime were even introduced. Fortunately, the 1922 timeline was a little quicker off the starting block, so I was never bored, just a little confused where things were going.

Potentially Offensive Content

There is some child abuse and child abduction. If that makes you squeemish, I would read something else.

What I Loved

I really loved the character of Verity Binks. She was a true cozy flapper heroine. She has that quality that can only be described as pluck. She's smart, energetic, and sweet. She parallels the early timeline heroine, Theodora Breckenridge, delightfully well. Both are modern, willful women in a time where that is not always an asset. They play off each other so well, the reader is dying for them to meet in the end.

If you love 1920s cozies, this is one you will not want to miss.

I will edit to add links to Goodreads, Amazon, Blog, and Barnes & Noble closer to publication date.

This was a beautifully written story! It has the perfect mix of history, intrigue, and a touch of romance. The characters and setting are enthralling and well written. The narration was wonderfully done. I would recommend this for any historical fiction fans!

This intriguing story takes place in two different timelines. One in Morpeth, New South Wales, Australia, in 1868 and the other in Sydney in 1922. At first, these timelines appear to have nothing to do with each other. But as the story continues, with each twist and turn, these two individual stories merge in unique ways. It's a great historical history a mystery full of love, loss, and betrayal that was delightfully captivating to listen to. The story is narrated by Emily Barrett and written by Tea Cooper.

Morpeth in 1868 Theodora Breckenridge discovered a butterfly one she believed as never been found in Australia before. Theodora knows all about grief and loss after losing her parents and brother in a boating accident. Morpeth is a small river town in New South Wales where she lives a quiet life now her sisters have left with the housekeeper to Sydney. But her fascination with the butterfly will bring so much joy and new hope to her life as she helps her friends and tries to start a new life for herself.

Sydney in 1922 we hear the story of Verity Banks who has a dream to become a correspondent and follow in her father and grandfather's footsteps. Verity has just had been fired from the Arrow newspaper in Sydney to make way for the returning soldiers to find employment Verity is at a loss for what not to do next. But when a parcel arrives at her door with an invitation to the Sydney Artist Masquerade Ball and she is asked to write an article about the Treadwell Foundation Verity will find herself in the middle of a mystery that will take her into new knowledge about her family and those associated with them.

This was a great historical mystery! It reminded me a bit of Kate Morton’s stories. Maybe because they are both Australian authors?

You follow multiple characters in two timelines, and I will say that I did get a bit confused at times, but that will usually happen when you have so many characters to keep track of.

In my opinion, Clarrie was the star of this book. I loved her storyline more than anything else.

There were some decent twists thrown in that I liked as well, so it kept me guessing.

I do think that the whole butterfly storyline kind of fell flat for me because it’s the title of the book, but it really wasn’t the most important part of the book at all. I just wasn’t sure why so much time was spent on developing it.

Ultimately this had potential but it just didn’t do it for me.

First, the title is misleading. Second, this could easily have been multiple books. There are too many separate storylines going.

I thought everything was interesting, the history was funny to learn about but it just didn’t blend together. The beginning was slow and I found myself getting bored sometimes.

The Butterfly collector comes from two eras to bring together lost people. There are many historical facts that are brought up from the first to see butterflies to early era daycare miss direction and mishaps. Tea cooper has put together a long past time and reminded us of where greed can take you. This was a very well read audiobook that I enjoyed listening to, Thank you Netgalley for this time.

The Butterfly Collector
•Historical Fiction
•Mystery
I enjoyed the dual timeline in this book! It had good characters and had some twists. I had trouble following along the first time so I reset the audiobook and enjoyed second time through!
The overall storyline was nice and a good listen! I had the audiobook version and thought the narrator did great!
Thank you Harper Muse and Net galley for this Audio Arc

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.

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.

2.75 stars.

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.

The Butterfly Collector is an intriguing historical fiction novel that covers two timelines in Australia. The first is set in 1860 in the town of Morpeth and follows Theodora Breckenridge who discovers a “new” butterfly never before found in Australia. She hires Clarrie, a young single mother to help her collect and catalogue the butterfly. Much of this timeline centers around Clarrie before and after she gives birth to her illegitimate son.

The second timeline is set in 1922 in Sydney and follows newspaper writer Verity Binks who recently lost her job to make room for men coming back from the Great War who need jobs. In developing her next freelance story, Verity uncovers a secret lucrative business that spans 60 years that involves baby farming, where babies of poor or single women were adopted for money- many times without their knowledge or consent.

This story is well written and expertly researched. I listened to the audiobook version of this story, narrated by Emily Barrett, who was moving and compelling. I highly recommend this audiobook!