Butterfly Soup

by Nancy Pinard

Rose Forrester was too old to be lying on her car's front seat spying on her first love. She even had a husband and a teenage daughter waiting for her at home. But Rob MacIntyre's return had just turned her world upside down. Seventeen years ago he'd been the town's golden boy and she'd been amazed that he'd even noticed her. Well, he'd done a lot more than notice.... Now she has to tell her husband some hard truths. As she copes with the unfolding...

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0373881061
• ISBN13: 9780373881062
• Release Date: July 2006
• Publisher: Harlequin Next
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 0.32 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 4.2" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

Engaging characters and skillful prose

Rose Forrester has a secret. A big one. Her daughter Valley is the product of a brief fling with a high school heartthrob and no one in her small town knows the truth. Until, that is, a Saturday morning phone call from the town gossip sets the wheels of truth in motion. She phones to inform Rose that Rob McIntyre (Valley's real father) is back in town. Rose dresses, jumps in her car, and drives into town to see for herself. When Rose makes an impulse purchase of a used nun's bed (auctioned off in the grocery store parking lot of her home town), the bed becomes a makeshift sanctuary that shelters her from what she knows will be the inevitable repurcussions from her sixteen-year-old sins. Her husband Everett's secret is a recently diagnosed medical condition; already his legs are going numb and disobeying what his brain commands. To avoid acknowledging his body's impending self-destruction, Everett takes off on a Saturday adventure: an attempt at parasailing that has disastrous results. Along the way he finds a beagle dog that helps keep the whole story turning and a woman who makes him question his marriage vows. Valley is a wonderfully rendered teenaged daughter and her depiction and deceptions are spot-on. She sneaks out that same crazy Saturday that her family seems to be self-destructing and winds up on a deserted road with a juvenile delinquent (appropriately named Snake) who happens to be a charge of Rob-the-heartthrob--MacIntyre. All of these twists combine to create a dizzying plot of secrets-kept and secrets-revealed while life and limb hang in the balance. The ending? You'll have to read the book yourself to get that--I'm no spoiler--but I can tell you that the final chapter of the book seamlessly weaves together a puppy, a quilt, a belly tattoo, a box of chocolates, and Sister Mary Theresa's bed.

Butterly Soup

Ms Pinard's entertaining book is a page-turner starring a thirty-something couple and their teenage daughter, a small-town family, who learn from their mistakes in very colorful ways. The writing is enchanting and the story very satisfying. The book evokes modern life in a unique town, with dangerous temptations for all. Intriguing parallels give the story a weighty resonance.

A beautifully-written family drama

Rosie, a devoutly Catholic wife and mother struggles with the emotional weight of a secret she's kept from her family. When someone from her past returns to town, she panics and retreats into religious ritual and, some might say, magical thinking as opposed to realistic, responsible action, as her daughter becomes involved while Rosie's attention is focused on herself. Meanwhile husband Everett, exceptionally well-portrayed, is keeping his own secret. The novel studies guilt and the use of ritual to excise it, ultimately showing how family members are best, most successfully connected to one another when they skip intercessory rituals, remove the blinders, and talk with courage and compassion. The quality of the writing is extremely high, meriting the 5 stars.

insightful relationship drama

The call from her best friend came at o'dark informing Rose Forrester that her former lover Rob MacIntyre was back in town after years of being away. Rose panics, as no one knows that seventeen years ago when she was a teen she made love with the town's golden boy resulting in a pregnancy. Her family, neighbors, husband Everett and her teenage daughter Valley think her spouse sired their offspring; Rose knows better. She would prefer for Rob to leave, but her desperate efforts to drive him out of town fail and only alienate her spouse and daughter. Rose concludes she must tell first Everett, then Valley, and finally her dad the truth about her biological father. All she can do is pray that they are forgiving of her hiding the truth from them; not realizing each one of them also has secrets that they should reveal but fear condemnation by their loved ones. BUTTERFLY SOUP is an insightful relationship drama that is at its best when readers feel the mental anguish suffered by the protagonist; when the story line turns frenzied with a desperate irrational activity it adds excitement, but loses its focus of a deep psychological study when an individual struggles with difficult choices. The cast is solid and seem real (except that those times when Rose is an out of control thorn) as each has secrets they conceal, but none has the steel to reveal even piecemeal. Harriet Klausner