[darryl]

The Butterfly Garden, the first book in this trilogy, was a Kindle First selection back in May 2016. I selected the book but it remained as to be read until about five or six weeks ago. The Genre indicated it was a thriller, which is not entirely inaccurate in the same sense as Thomas Harris's The Silence of the Lambs or Red Dragon are thrillers. Like those books, the Butterfly Garden visits some deeply disturbing places in the human psyche, and provides plenty of food for thought. The themes are horrific and disturbing, as they are in many of the better books of this type. I'm not into trigger warnings, but one poster on Goodreads, Niki Huffine, answered the question as to whether the book was too graphic or disturbing by mentioning kidnapping, rape, pedophilia, serial murder, child molestation, torture, and vaguely incestuous relationships. You have been warned.

I'm not going to make comment about the plot or give away other details, other than I thought the book exceptional and worth reading. Because of this, it took me probably 5 or 6 weeks to start reading the second book in the trilogy, The Roses of May. This is because it is so common for later books to disappoint. Well, I am now part way through this second book and so far it is probably even better than the first. The last book in the series, the Summer Children, has been released, and I look forward to reading it, though not without some apprehension given the title and the content of the first two books.

All books are published by the Amazon imprint Thomas and Mercer and are available on Kindle Unlimited. The first and last ebooks are $5.99 to purchase, the second $7.99.

Based on my reading so far I would recommend both the first and second books, with a good prospect that I will also find the 3rd worth reading. They should be read in order. Though the stories are different, at least the first two have some common characters and the second book refers to events in the first. They do of course share a certain common theme hinted at by the reference to "the Collector Series".

If you like these sorts of books you will probably love them. If you are squeamish or disturbed or simply choose to avoid these types of themes, then the books are not for you.