Dead Harvest

This book will always be special to me because it's the first book from NetGalley that I requested for and was approved, after many rejections. Having said that, this book was twisted and hard to put down. I loved it.

From the messed up scene of an escape, the FBI found themselves questioning a victim, the unflappable Maya, about where she and a disturbingly large number of tattooed girls escaped from. She told them about the Butterfly Garden and their role as “butterfies” for a man they only knew as The Gardener.

As Maya slowly unfolds the story, we learned about the Gardener's perfect fantasy world, where he “collected” beautiful young women in the prime of their beauty (16-21), tattooed different types of butterfly wings on their back, gave them a new name, and raped them whenever he wanted. On their 21st birthday, he kills them. What he does with their bodies after is deliciously fucked up. While the Gardener is portrayed as fatherly, he has no qualms about moving their deaths up if they disappoint him in any way.

The writing is an easy read and drags you along. The characters are compelling and well-developed. I enjoy the almost-cold and unflinching Maya, and the handful of Butterflies whom she interacted with in the garden, but I'm still rather staggered by the number of captives there. Her relationship with the Gardener is also fascinating.

Enjoyed this tremendously. One of my rare 5-stars.

Another I heard of in Monster, She Wrote and... Oh man, this was so good and awful. The Gardner was almost too fucked up for me, but I loved the narrator. The way it all came together at the end was really well done. And even the fucked-up-edness was really well done and vivid, just a bit much at times. I'm not sure I'll read more of the series, but if I do, they're sure to be well done.