Rent The Butterfly Cabinet

Synopsis

Now in paperback—"An emotionally bracing, refreshingly intelligent, and ultimately heartbreaking story" (Kirkus Reviews) of two women linked by a tragic, decades-old secret.When Maddie McGlade, a former nanny, receives a letter from the last of her charges, she realizes the time has come to unburden herself of a secret she has kept for more than seventy years: the truth behind events that led to the death of Charlotte Ormond, the four-year-old daughter of the wealthy household where Maddie was employed as a young woman. The Butterfly Cabinet unfolds in chapters that alternate between Maddie's story and the prison diaries of Charlotte's mother, Harriet, who was held responsible for her daughter's death. Proud and uncompromising, Harriet's great passions are riding horses and collecting butterflies; motherhood comes no more easily to her than does her role as mistress of a far-flung Irish estate. When her daughter dies as the result of her punitive actions, her community is quick to condemn her. But Harriet's prison diaries, together with Maddie's own revelations, build toward a more complex truth. 

Based on chilling events that actually took place in Northern Ireland in 1892, The Butterfly Cabinet is a sterling example of dark, emotionally complex fiction.

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