Disclaimer: I received a copy via Librarything giveaway.
A blurb for this refers to The Other Boleyn Girl. I disagree with Gregory’s view of Anne Boleyn in the novel, but I also found it a compelling read. It’s a guilty pleasure book.
Butterfly Games is not that.
The only thing that stands out is that Scarborough found the real-life Jacquette Gyldenstople interesting. But that does not translate to the book in any meaningful way.
The reader is introduced to Jacquette after her parents’ divorce, and she seems to have thoughts about a great many things. At times these thoughts and desires seem contradictory, but hey, she’s human. But she really doesn’t seem to do anything except fall in love with Prince Oscar. Or at least I think they fall in love. I’m not sure why they fall in love. It doesn’t seem particularly passionate or anything. Neither one of them seems all that interesting.
Jacquette is the least interesting girl or woman in the novel. Her mother Aurora seems more interesting. The Chatterati, supposedly mean girls who are mean for two pages, are more interesting (I missed Diane). Jacquette’s aunt is more interesting. Jacquette complains about a great many things but why she feels this way by and large remains a mystery because of all the women in the book Jacquette does not feel like a fully formed character. And nothing that she seems upset about is that bad in the world of the book. She is upset that her parents divorce hurts her reputation but only suffers one insult about it. The Chatterati are even sympathetic to her mother, of all things. The book might have still worked even with that handicapped because of the interesting characters of Aurora, Emilie, and Brita. But then I got to part four.
Parts one to three are all told in third person point of view. Part four is first person. This could have worked. When the book opens, Jacquette is around fourteen; in part four she would be around nineteen. The change in point of view could be a stylistic choice that shows Jacquette has grown to be an independent woman. The problem is that in part five, the book goes back to third person point of view and changes the verb tense, implying that the previous sections were all flashbacks, though nothing in that section of the novel supports that.
A good editor would have worked with the author to fix these problems. The fact that they were not addressed, at least in the edition I was sent, is not a good sign.
