Teresa Solana is one of those surprising literary discoveries that you want to keep close track of her works. Especially for someone so much interested in the intersection of politics, social struggle and individual destinies, following her work is always a pleasure for my brain keen to see patterns and track mysteries.
The Butterfly House, translated from Catalan by Peter Bush, is published by Corylus Books, and as usual, it is always a pleasure and a honor to be part of their literary events. I had the chance to read and review (almost) all of the books they published and I was never disappointed.
The Butterfly House is a squat building in the district of Vallcarca in Barcelona, where the daughter of a middle class doctor and policewoman is about to fall in love with a nerdy boy in love with science, also escaping his similar - although more ´new money´ social background. But a murdered woman is found challenging the course of love.
Norma Foster, the main woman character from Black Storms is in a delicate position professionally, as her daughter is entangled with a potential suspect. But for her, the challenges, so elegantly putting the life of almost each of the characters into a different perspective, are of personal nature as well, with her marital loyalty jeopardized by an affair. And she is not the only one facing such questions.
As in Black Storms, it is admirably how smartly Solana is inserting the characters into the social and political entanglement and how many of the current debates in the Catalunya part of Spain are seized through the dialogues and experiences of the characters.
Personally, I´ve felt that the ending was a bit hurried, as I expected more crime riddle delights, but I was clearly rewarded with the concise episodes of the plot and the character development, especially their moral (marital) dilemma. I am clearly in need of discovering more Catalan authors and topics.
Rating: 4.5 stars
Disclaimer: Book offered as part of the book tour but the opinions are, as usual, my own
