The Butterfly Summer: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of THE GARDEN OF LOST AND FOUND and THE WILDFLOWERS

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I seem to be on a roll lately with really fabulous books. I just finished listening to Audible's Butterfly Summer by Anne-Marie Conway and read by Kate Harbour. This is added to my list of good reads. For the description of the butterfly garden alone, this book is worth the read. But who would have thought that a modern ghost story could take place in this setting? It is the third year in a row that the count has recorded its lowest-ever average abundance, a worrying sign that once-common flying insects are continuing to disappear from Britain. The large blue, which was hastened to extinction by the dry summer of 1976, enjoyed its best year since being reintroduced in 1983 via caterpillars from Sweden, increasing by 58% on 2017. There are more large blues now flying in Britain than any other country.

Overall, participants of the Big Butterfly Count enjoyed seeing more butterflies this year than in the previous four summers. In total, over 1.5 million butterflies and day-flying moths were recorded from 14 July - 6 August. After an all-time low in 2022 of just nine individual butterflies spotted per Count, this year saw an increase to 12 butterflies recorded on average per Count. Oh.my god. Just where do I begin? This was undoubtedly the most gripping, suspenseful, enthralling book i have ever read. I mean, the increasing sense of mystery and suspense was just amazing, incredibly, something I simply cannot get over. That and how spine-chilling it actually was! The mysteries and suspense just left you wanting to read more and more! I was up til late finishing it because it would've just drove me crazy if I had these major mysteries just hanging over me, I was determined to see them unfold and find out what this dramatic suspense would lead to! However, this good news is in contrast with what the long-term trends are revealing. Released for the first time this year, these show that since the Big Butterfly Count started 13 years ago, many species have significantly decreased.Yet despite the rise in records of continental European species such as the large tortoiseshell, long-tailed blue and the spectacular queen of Spain fritillary during the past decade, none has yet managed to establish permanent breeding populations here. I liked how The Butterfly Summer was set out and it covered a lot of different topics, like war, being gay during a time when it was still seen as wrong, guilt the London Riots. I didn’t know the London Riots were going to be in the book but it was interesting to read about it. If only for the short time is was mentioned.

The recipe: take a single child grown up with a depressed mother, give her an eccentric, entomologyst - and missing - father whose death was never solved, add an ex marriage, a boring work and mix together. During cooking time spice it up with an overly caring neighbour, a mysterious house and its macabre past, the sudden death - by creepy, unlikely to happen accident - of ex-husband, with whom the protagonist was about to rekindle romance and have a child, then scoop everything out of the pan and add other ingredients. A mess, that is. In the UK there are currently 57 resident species of butterfly and two regular migrants. Of these, it is estimated that 76% have declined in abundance, occurrence or both over the past 40 years. Almost all of these losses can be attributed to man-made changes such as habitat destruction and pollution, along with larger patterns of weather and climate change. Essentially a story about a dysfunctional family and secrets and obligations that pass from female generation to generation binding them all together for an eternity. It starts at the end really where the present day Nina meets an old woman in the London Library where she has been given life membership by her father before he went away when she was a child and who she never sees again believing him to be dead. This chance meeting (or perhaps it wasn't chance) starts her on a journey of discovery about her life, lineage and inheritance of Keepsake and the butterflies.

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The fine weather did cause many butterflies to emerge a week or two earlier than normal and so the Big Butterfly Count – which starts in the third week of July – missed the peak emergence of some common midsummer species, such as the meadow brown and marbled white. At university I read Classical Studies, which is a great way of finding out that the world doesn't change much and people make the same mistakes but it's interesting to look at why. I was at Bristol, and i loved the city, making new friends, being a new person.