The Butterfly Sister by Amy Gail Hansen Book Spotlight and Review

The BUTTERFLY SISTER

*Indie Next Pick for August*

 

“I LOVED IT. It is the perfect beach read—girls who like dishy romantic thrillers are going to go nuts for it this summer. I myself couldn’t put it down until I was done.”

–Meg Cabot, New York Times bestselling author

“That rare thing, a dark mystery that also works on your heart… a beguiling, terrifying story and Amy Gail Hansen a true find.” –Jacquelyn Mitchard,New York Times

bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean

 

“Suspenseful and swiftly paced.” –Kirkus

The Butterfly Sister (William Morrow Paperbacks; August 6, 2013) is a phenomenal debut novel by Amy Gail Hansen that juxtaposes heartbreak and romance, madness and betrayal, art and determination.

 

Ruby Rousseau is haunted by her memories. First, her father is killed in a hit-and-run accident in their hometown of New Orleans. Then, a year later, Ruby dropped out of Tarble, a college for women in the Midwest, just before graduating. A painful love affair had pushed her to the brink of tragedy, throwing her whole life out of balance.

 

Now, ten months later, a suitcase belonging to a former classmate, Beth Richards, arrives on her doorstep, plunging Ruby into a dark mystery. Beth has gone missing, and the suitcase is the only tangible evidence of her whereabouts. Inside the bag, Ruby finds a tattered copy of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own, the book she believes was a harbinger of her own madness. Is someone sending her a message—and what does it mean?

 

Along with Virginia Woolf, the works of Sylvia Plath and Charlotte Perkins Gilman provide a cautionary tale for Ruby as an aspiring writer balancing the trials and tribulations of life as a young woman.

 

A search for answers leads Ruby back to Tarble, and as she digs into Beth’s past, Ruby is forced to confront her own—a journey that will lead her to reexamine her final days at school, including the married professor who broke her heart.

Amazon

 Review

Ruby Rousseau can't seem to get past the memories of Tarble.  Even with counseling she is still struggling with the events that had her leaving the college ten months earlier.  When an unexpected delivery of a suitcase from a former classmate arrives, everything around Ruby shifts.  Ruby is thrust into a mystery surrounding Beth and forced to face everything she ran away from.  In a journey that reroutes Ruby's life, you are swept into a mesmerizing story about betrayal, a puzzle that needs to be solved, and finding yourself again.  Wonderfully written and hauntingly beautiful.  

Born in the Chicago suburbs, Amy Gail Hansen spent her early childhood near New Orleans. She holds a BA in English from Carthage College in Kenosha, Wisconsin. A former English teacher, she works as a freelance writer and journalist in suburban Chicago, where she lives with her husband and three children. The Butterfly Sister is her debut novel.