Review: Butterfly Tattoo by Deidre Knight

Butterfly Tattoo by Deidre Knight

Review by Chronic Betty

Just when the darkness seems permanent, fate flips a switch.

Michael Warner has been drifting in a numb haze since his lover was killed by a drunk driver. As the anniversary of the wreck approaches, Michael’s grief grows more suffocating. Yet he must find a way through the maze of pain and secrets to live for their troubled young daughter who struggles with guilt that she survived the crash.

Out of the darkness comes a voice, a lifeline he never expected to find—Rebecca O’Neill, a development executive in the studio where Michael works as an electrician.

Rebecca, a former sitcom celebrity left scarred from a crazed fan’s attack, has retreated from the limelight and from life in general, certain no man can ever get past her disfigurement. The instant sparks between her and Michael, who arrives to help her during a power outage, come as a complete surprise—and so does her uncanny bond with his daughter.

For the first time, all three feel compelled to examine their inner and outer scars in the light of love. But trust is hard to come by, especially when you’re not sure what to believe when you look in the mirror. The scars? Or the truth?

This is a difficult one to review, because it's such a big novel, not it's length so much as it's scope.  Rebecca is a woman who is damaged both physically and emotionally, and struggles daily to deal with that damage.  Michael was widowed almost a year ago, and he's struggling to find his balance and connect with his daughter again.  Either of those problems would be enough to fill a book.  But Rebecca and Michael have one more.  Michael's dead spouse was a man.

He's not only dealing with the usual feelings of betrayal as he finds love again, he's also readjusting his view of himself as he accepts that maybe he's not as gay as he thought he was.  Rebecca, who was horribly scarred in the attack and has understandable self confidence issues because of it, also fears that at some point Michael will decide he'd rather be with another man after all. 

The book is very gentle in how all these issues are faced and dealt with.  Michael and Rebecca take the relationship slowly, breaking down walls and building sexual tension.  And Michael's daughter, Andrea, develops a significant relationship with Rebecca.  There's a lot of pain to go around in this story, but a lot of joy, too.

About two thirds of the way through the story it took a surprising turn toward Inspirational.  (If there are many Bisexual Inspirational Romances out there, I certainly haven't come across them.)  There was no heavy handed proselytizing, but religion became important to them all in a way that I've never seen outside of the occasional Inspie.

Shortly before that, Michael and Rebecca break up.  One of my few problems with this book is that this portion of the book dragged a bit.  Pain because they're dealing with some heavy stuff I can deal with.  But this is where it started to tip over into angst for me.

I also wasn't completely in love with the style the book was written in.  It's first person present tense, with Rebecca and Michael narrating in alternating chapters.  The narrator is labeled at the top of each chapter, but I tend to skip past chapter headers, so it took me a little while to figure out what was going on.  Those first few sentences of each chapter were pretty confusing until I caught on.  As I got used to the style it became invisible to me, and the story took over.  But someone who really dislikes first person or present tense might have issues with this.
Overall, this is a rich, emotional story, with unusual characters and situations.  I give it a B+.  It was published by Samhain and is available in trade paper and ebook.  I bought this one myself.