The Butterfly Garden

Gather initial thoughts and broad opinions about the book.

1. Did you find The Butterfly Garden to be an engaging narrative? What aspects of the novel (e.g., dialogue, plot, descriptions, characterizations) did you find to be the most compelling?

2. The Butterfly Garden combines elements of mystery, suspense, and horror. Did you find some of these genre influences to be stronger than others? Which did you feel were the most interesting?

3. Compare The Butterfly Garden with other novels in Dot Hutchison’s The Collector series, contrasting their narrative voices, character arcs, thematic elements, and more.

Encourage readers to connect the book’s themes and characters with their personal experiences.

1. The novel’s protagonist and her fellow prisoners mostly resign themselves to their situation and never forcibly resist their captors. Do you find this behavior relatable? If you were in their place, what would you do?

2. Taking into account their personalities, strengths, and creative interests, which of the novel’s characters do you most identify with—Inara, Lyonette, Bliss, Danelle, Hanoverian, Eddison, etc.?

3. The ending of the novel introduces a plot twist involving Sophia, who turns out to be a former prisoner of the Gardener.