Book Review: Butterfly Sisters

I received this galley in exchange for an honest review.

Author: Jenny Hale

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Publisher: Harpeth Road Press

Publish Date: February 22, 2022

Format: eBook

★★★★☆

This book is perfect for those that like: Family Dramas, Stories of Forgiveness, or Second Chance Romances

You might not like this book if you aren’t into: Stories Featuring Grief

Favorite Line: "...sometimes the best parts of our lives come out of the things that make us feel the most uncomfortable." ~ Colton

The Book

“When emerging into the world, a butterfly needs the struggle to push the fluid from its body into its wings. So essentially, without the struggle, it never flies.”

About to land her biggest deal yet, Leigh Henderson is on her game. Nothing can get in her way. Except Rebecca Mayer, who’d sashayed in a few weeks ago with a former client list that would fill the entire hallway to Leigh’s office. When her boss unexpectedly offers the deal to Rebecca and tells Leigh he’s letting her go, Leigh finds herself without a job.

But that’s the least of her worries.

Her mother has some news that will change everything. She’s asked Leigh and her sister Meredith to meet her at the family cabin on Old Hickory Lake. Not only has Leigh been unable to track down her sister for years, but going back to the cabin would mean dealing with the loss of her beloved grandmother and also chance running into her old flame Colton Harris, the one love she’s never been able to completely let go of.

Will confronting her grief, speaking to her estranged sister, and forcing herself to face the love she’d left behind help Leigh to learn who she really is?

The Review

I went into this book thinking it was going to be a Second Chance Romance with a dash of Family Drama mixed in and I couldn’t have been more wrong. It is, in fact, the exact opposite - Butterfly Sisters is a story of messy families dealing with grief and forgiveness - with a touch of romance.

Y’all, I ain’t mad about it. At all. 

If there’s one thing that will lure me away from a good romance, it’s a good healing family drama. I’ve spoken about this many times here on this blog, but I left my home city at 18 and have pretty much never gone back. At this point, I’m 1,800 miles away from not only where I grew up but also from the people I grew up around. It’s always been a tender point for me. Did I make the right choice? Should I have stayed and planted roots with the people who raised me? Do the people I left behind think I forgot about them? These are all questions that I feel that the sisters in this story, Leigh and Merideth, have probably asked themselves throughout their lives.

Told from the viewpoint of older sister Leigh, we initially meet her, her childhood friend/love interest Colton, and her younger sister Merideth in a flashback scene from their youth. Leigh is on the cusp of leaving home and we watch her leave a budding romance behind as well as her younger sister, and how her leaving affects each in turn. It’s a great set-up to let us learn immediately that Leigh is the Responsible One, Colton is the One Who Settles, and Meredith is the One Who Can’t Stay Still. The funny thing is both sisters leave, but only one is deemed “acceptable” to the family. When Leigh, the Ambitious One with a Plan, leaves her family for school and then a high-powered career in NYC, her parents are super proud of her accomplishments, as opposed to when younger sister Merideth, the Wanderlust with No Plan, leaves her family deems her “flakey” and unreliable. This dichotomy drives a wedge between them, pitting Leigh and Meredith against one another their whole lives, leaving them unable to communicate with each other and eventually sisters in name only. Their distance from one another is palpable, even when they both find themselves staying in their late Nan’s cabin awaiting some life-changing news from their mother. Accusations are made and truths are confronted all while against the backdrop of some new, devastating family news. It’s a frustrating, painful road back to being a family again, but the story takes us along for the ride, and watching these sisters, along with their mother, forgive each other, accept each other as their true selves, and make new memories was powerful.

Leigh’s journey to forgiveness isn’t just with her family either. She also has to confront the choices she made when she left Colton on that fateful summer afternoon when they were both young. It’s a lovely romantic side plot where two people, who at one time were inseparable, recognize that they need to get to know each other now, as their adult selves. Their relationship grows slowly, which I appreciated after so much time apart. 

I was absorbed by this story right from the prologue through the final page and y’all, if you’re looking for a story of redemption, set in a small town, with messy people who do in fact love each other immensely, then you will love Butterfly Sisters.

The Author

Jenny Hale is a USA Today, Amazon, and international bestselling author of romantic contemporary fiction. Her books have sold worldwide, have been translated into multiple languages, and adapted for television. The Beach House, released in 2021 sailed to number three on the Amazon Kindle Chart and it hit number one in the categories Contemporary Romance, Women’s Literary Fiction, Contemporary Fiction, and Romance. Her novels Coming Home for Christmas and Movie Guide Epiphany Award winner Christmas Wishes and Mistletoe Kisses are Hallmark Channel original movies. She was included in Oprah Magazine’s “19 Dreamy Summer Romances to Whisk You Away” and both Southern Living’s “30 Christmas Novels to Start Reading Now” as well as “Beach Reads Perfect for Summer 2020.” Her stories are chock-full of feel-good romance and overflowing with warm settings, great friends, and family. Jenny is at work on her next novel, delighted to be bringing even more heartwarming stories to her readers. When she isn’t writing or heading up her romantic fiction imprint Harpeth Road, she can be found running around her hometown of Nashville with her husband, two boys, and their labradoodle, taking pictures—her favorite past time.

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