Synopsis:
Hollywood producer for the Bride-to-Be franchise, Anna is on top of her game. She’s helped generations of women navigate the ups and downs of romance. Ironic, since her own love life is a mess. When the Bride-to-Be finale is relocated to Ischia in Italy, Anna plans to use the opportunity to settle some family affairs. And perhaps solve an old mystery of her own. Delia. Decades before, at the age of seventeen, Anna had spent a summer with her aunt on the lush island. Far from an idyllic vacation, she made few friends and learned her aunt had been hiding secrets from the family. Now she’s going back to sell her aunt’s house and finish up the show’s season finale. As the crew get ready to roll the cameras, all havoc breaks loose. The newest bride-to-be is missing. The groom’s partying has been all over social media. And the sale of the house is shrouded in mystery, with an anonymous buyer. Both Anna’s personal and professional lives crash in on her. With only hours left until the finale, Anna must find a solution for the show. And face the events that still haunt her from that long ago summer.
Shop The Book: Butterfly Summer
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The cover pulled me in first. There is a beautiful butterfly on it that just stopped me in my tracks. The synopsis felt like it was going to be a deeply emotional and meaningful read. It was also offered as an audiobook which I love because I can listen while I multitask, so I said yes. I am so glad I did because this turned out to be one of the most incredibly moving books I have ever read. Thank you to Rachel’s Random Resources for having me on this tour.
The Story
Butterfly Summer follows Anna, a Hollywood producer for a reality show called Bride to Be, who has to film the season finale on the Italian island of Ischia. What she does not tell anyone is that this island holds something deeply personal for her. She spent a summer there at seventeen with her aunt and she has never wanted to go back since. As Anna returns to the island in the present day to film her show and settle her late aunt’s affairs, we are taken back in time to relive that summer alongside her. The first half of the book unfolds that seventeen year old experience almost in real time, as though we are living it rather than looking back on it. The second half returns to the present, where Anna navigates the chaos of her production while quietly revisiting the places and people of her past and finding the closure she has spent decades avoiding.
Reading Experience
I did not fully connect with the present day producer storyline until I had lived through that seventeen year old summer first. And once I had, everything changed. That flashback summer was so emotional, so richly experienced, so full of coming of age and identity and the very human fear of being who you truly are, that it completely defined Anna as a character for me. Once I understood her at seventeen I understood everything about her at fifty. The present day drama surrounding her show added some fun energy to the story but that wasn’t really what I was there for. What I was there for was the way she got to return to places and people from her past, the way she got to revisit and finally sit with the things she had been running from. Those moments were heart wrenching and I loved every one of them.
What Toni De Palma does so well is make the past feel as immediate and alive as the present. That seventeen year old summer does not read like a flashback. It reads like it is happening right now, and that choice made it feel visceral and real in a way that a traditional retrospective structure never could have. I also want to mention that some parts of this story are based on a true experience from the author’s own life. I did not know that until after I finished listening and when I found out it made everything hit so much deeper. The heart wrenching part was the real part. And knowing that just added a layer of emotional weight that I am still sitting with.
Characters
Anna is one of those characters I just loved completely. She is human and raw and scared and unique and so deeply relatable in the way that only the most honest writing can make a character feel. She has concerns and relationships and worries that everybody experiences in one form or another, and reading from her perspective was just such a rich and grounding experience.
Her aunt, even with her crotchety edges and her mental health struggles, had this endearing quality underneath it all. You could feel the kind soul buried beneath everything she was carrying. Raw and human and relatable in her own way.
The characters Anna meets during that summer at seventeen I loved completely, flaws and all. They felt like real people I got to know and care about. And in the present day, while I did not connect as deeply with most of the production team characters, I really loved Cheryl, Anna’s assistant, who clearly means a great deal to her and is a genuinely pivotal presence in her life.
Themes and Tone
This book is about relationships in all their forms. Friendships, romantic relationships, the relationship you have with your own identity and who you truly are. It is about the fear of stepping into yourself and the beauty of finding people who celebrate who you are rather than asking you to shrink. There are deep undertones of mental health running through the whole story, about finding people who can support you when you need it and about the heartbreaking truth that you might never fully know when someone is really struggling, even someone you love, and that is not your fault.
The tone is emotionally rich and sometimes sad but ultimately about closure. About going back to the things that hurt you and finding a way to finally be at peace with them.
Final Thoughts
Butterfly Summer is one of the most moving books I have ever read and I cannot recommend it highly enough. If you love character heavy, relationship heavy, deeply emotional stories that are a little sad but ultimately about closure and healing and finding yourself, this one is for you. Toni De Palma wrote something genuinely beautiful here and the fact that part of it came from a real place in her own life makes it even more extraordinary.
Thank you for allowing me to be a part of this virtual book tour Rachel’s Random Resources .
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About the author
Toni De Palma is the multi-published author of six novels. Her first novel, Under the Banyan Tree, was selected as a Kirkus New Voices Pick and a New York Public Library Book for the Teen Age. Toni holds an M.F.A. in Writing from Vermont College and is a 2008 and 2026 recipient of a New Jersey Arts Fellowship in Prose. Toni’s writing interests extend to fiction, memoir, plays and screenplays. In December 2019, Toni directed her first short film, Marty’s Calling, adapted from one of her short plays.
Social Media Links: Website | Facebook | Instagram
Narrator Bio
Theresa (Terri) Mastrobuono has been active in the theater, film, and entertainment world for nearly 45 years, appearing in hundreds of productions across the eastern US and in Italy. As a voice actor she has recorded commercials, film narration, character voices, and audiobooks. Butterfly Summer is her current release and has earned a 5 star rating. She currently lives in a hilltop village in Abruzzo, Italy, where she maintains a recording studio and continues voice work.
Social Media Links: Website | Instagram | LinkedIn
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