08/12/2019
Thirty-year-old private investigator Naomi Cottle returns in Denfeld’s gripping follow-up to 2017’s The Child Finder, continuing her search for the sister she left behind when she fled captivity as a child. It won’t be easy: Naomi remembers nothing of the time before or during her captivity, not even her sister’s name. A series of recent murders of street kids has piqued her interest, and during her investigation in Portland, Ore., Naomi meets 12-year-old Celia, who is living on the streets after her stepfather was acquitted for sexually molesting her; Celia is terrified that he’ll do the same to her little sister, Alyssa. Celia finds solace in the butterflies that live in her vivid imagination, in her friendship with fellow street kid Rich, and eventually, in Naomi, whose harrowing search—to which Celia may hold the key—leads to a predator who targets society’s most vulnerable. Denfeld depicts the bleak lives of street kids in heart-wrenching detail; the realities of homelessness are rendered in stark language, a striking juxtaposition against Celia’s fantasy world. Denfeld emphasizes throughout that even where there is horror, there is still hope, a theme borne out in the bittersweet conclusion. Readers will be enthralled. (Oct.)
A heartbreaking, finger-gnawing, and yet ultimately hopeful novel by the amazing Rene Denfeld.” — Margaret Atwood, via Twitter
“Denfeld summons the lives of abandoned girls in frank, matter-of-fact detail, never glossing over the filth or violence or the myriad ways in which society lets them down. But ultimately The Butterfly Girl is a crime novel with a murderer on the loose. In the final pages, Denfeld speeds up the narrative, creating a propulsive denouement.” — New York Times
"Denfeld reminds us that storytelling remains one of the most powerful means we have of confronting our darkest human impulses, and sometimes overcoming them." — Washington Post
In the hands of Denfeld, The Butterfly Girl is a crime thriller built upon redemption. A survivor of trauma who was herself homeless as a young girl in Portland, Ore., Denfeld knows the harsh truths of her book’s world. . . . Amid a steady supply of darkness, The Butterfly Girl still has room for light. — Los Angeles Times
“Denfeld tells her twinned stories with a remarkable sense of calm and forbearance in prose that is close to lyrical.” — Toronto Star
"[M]arvelously done, and Denfeld’s characters . . . are human in the best sense of the word — humorous, loving, scared and easily rooted for." — Datebook
“Equal parts chilling, tragic and hopeful, Rene Denfeld’s new novel combines her haunting, lyrical prose with a page-turning and harrowing mystery, putting The Butterfly Girl into a league of its own. Fans of The Child Finder will devour this.” — Mary Kubica, New York Times Bestselling Author of The Good Girl
“The Butterfly Girl is a beautiful and very moving novel about lost souls. This heart-stopping thriller left me breathless.” — Shari Lapena, bestselling author of The Couple Next Door
The Butterfly Girl is a beautiful and very moving novel about lost souls. This heart-stopping thriller left me breathless.
"[M]arvelously done, and Denfeld’s characters . . . are human in the best sense of the word — humorous, loving, scared and easily rooted for."
Denfeld summons the lives of abandoned girls in frank, matter-of-fact detail, never glossing over the filth or violence or the myriad ways in which society lets them down. But ultimately The Butterfly Girl is a crime novel with a murderer on the loose. In the final pages, Denfeld speeds up the narrative, creating a propulsive denouement.
Denfeld tells her twinned stories with a remarkable sense of calm and forbearance in prose that is close to lyrical.
Equal parts chilling, tragic and hopeful, Rene Denfeld’s new novel combines her haunting, lyrical prose with a page-turning and harrowing mystery, putting The Butterfly Girl into a league of its own. Fans of The Child Finder will devour this.
In the hands of Denfeld, The Butterfly Girl is a crime thriller built upon redemption. A survivor of trauma who was herself homeless as a young girl in Portland, Ore., Denfeld knows the harsh truths of her book’s world. . . . Amid a steady supply of darkness, The Butterfly Girl still has room for light.
A heartbreaking, finger-gnawing, and yet ultimately hopeful novel by the amazing Rene Denfeld.
"Denfeld reminds us that storytelling remains one of the most powerful means we have of confronting our darkest human impulses, and sometimes overcoming them."
In the hands of Denfeld, The Butterfly Girl is a crime thriller built upon redemption. A survivor of trauma who was herself homeless as a young girl in Portland, Ore., Denfeld knows the harsh truths of her book’s world. . . . Amid a steady supply of darkness, The Butterfly Girl still has room for light.
"Denfeld reminds us that storytelling remains one of the most powerful means we have of confronting our darkest human impulses, and sometimes overcoming them."
"Denfeld reminds us that storytelling remains one of the most powerful means we have of confronting our darkest human impulses, and sometimes overcoming them."
In the hands of Denfeld, The Butterfly Girl is a crime thriller built upon redemption. A survivor of trauma who was herself homeless as a young girl in Portland, Ore., Denfeld knows the harsh truths of her book’s world. . . . Amid a steady supply of darkness, The Butterfly Girl still has room for light.
"[M]arvelously done, and Denfeld’s characters . . . are human in the best sense of the word humorous, loving, scared and easily rooted for."
Denfeld summons the lives of abandoned girls in frank, matter-of-fact detail, never glossing over the filth or violence or the myriad ways in which society lets them down. But ultimately The Butterfly Girl is a crime novel with a murderer on the loose. In the final pages, Denfeld speeds up the narrative, creating a propulsive denouement.
Denfeld tells her twinned stories with a remarkable sense of calm and forbearance in prose that is close to lyrical.
2019-07-15
An investigator who specializes in locating missing children turns her attention to a case closer to home.
After introducing Naomi Cottle to readers in The Child Finder (2017), Denfeld has brought back the tough-but-fragile searcher to explore her origins. As a girl, Naomi was held captive with her sister in a bunker in rural Oregon; one day, Naomi escaped and ran to safety and was eventually taken in by a foster mother. But Naomi was never reunited with the sister she had to leave behind, and now, 20 years on, without even the ability to remember her sister's name, Naomi is trying to find her, starting with the street community in Portland. She's especially drawn to one girl she meets, Celia, a 12-year-old who's been homeless since reporting her stepfather for sexual abuse only to see him acquitted and able to move back into the family home, where Celia's younger sister still lives. Despite the fact that Celia is living on the streets at the same time as young homeless women are being murdered and dumped into the river, she feels safer there than at home thanks to the refuge she takes in the local library and in her imagination, where she obsesses over butterflies and the freedom they represent. As she works to recover her sister, gain Celia's trust, and uncover the serial killer, Naomi serves to remind us of the message of all of Denfeld's work: "People stop existing once you forget them"—and no person deserves to be forgotten. If Denfeld would ease up a bit on the sentimentality, this message could shine through all the more.
A humane, though frequently mawkish, look at a system where too many fall through the cracks.