Why a Booktrail?
2000s, 1940s: A house of butterflies but also of secrets
The Butterfly Room
What you need to know before your trail
Posy Montague is approaching her seventieth birthday. Still living in her beautiful family home, Admiral House, set in the glorious Suffolk countryside where she spent her own idyllic childhood catching butterflies with her beloved father, and raised her own children, Posy knows she must make an agonizing decision. Despite the memories the house holds, and the exquisite garden she has spent twenty-five years creating, the house is crumbling around her, and Posy knows the time has come to sell it.
Then a face appears from the past – Freddie, her first love, who abandoned her and left her heartbroken fifty years ago. Already struggling to cope with her son Sam’s inept business dealings, and the sudden reappearance of her younger son Nick after ten years in Australia, Posy is reluctant to trust in Freddie’s renewed affection. And unbeknown to Posy, Freddie – and Admiral House – have a devastating secret to reveal .
Locations
Reset- England - London
- E: Kew Gardens
- F: The Ritz
- G: Fulham Road
- England - Cambridge
- H: Silver St
- I: Cambridge University Botanic Garden
Travel Guide
Travel BookTrail style through Suffolk and London with Lucinda riley
Admiral House – Southwold
Sadly not real but there are a few houses in and around the Southwold area you could visit and pretend they contain the butterfly room. Henham Hall is one of them and if you drive around the area, you will see houses and location where that very house might once have stood. The landscape conjures up all sorts of images of grand homes and crumbling mansions only reached by long winding country roads.
Southwold
A typical seaside town with narrow streets, cobbled alleyways and colourful houses. The characters in the novel come into Southwold all the time and it’s where Evie lives and where Nick’s car is spotted as Posy is in the village with a friend. It gives off an an air of calm and relaxation but Posy and the characters within the novel have their problems, they often come into the village to a coffee shop or pub, or even just to have a walk to forget things for a while.
London
There’s plenty scenes in London as a couple of characters look for shop premises here around Sloane Square and the Fulham Road. There’s a visit to The Ritz but it’s a sad one and just goes to show that money is not everything. The best location here is Kew Gardens as you find out about the love of nature and gardens. The theme of the butterflies and the very essence of the novel really comes to the fore here.
Cambridge
Someone in the novel goes to study botany and animals here. There’s a lovely spot in the botanical gardens which again brings out the themes of the novel very nicely indeed.
There’s even a jaunt over to Amsterdam but there’s no locations to visit apart from the airport. The city is evoked via vague streets and the infamous coffee shops though!
BookTrail Boarding Pass: The Butterfly Room
Destination: Suffolk, Southwold, London, Cambridge Author/guide: Lucinda Riley Departure Time: 1940s, 2000s
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