The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison

The Butterfly Garden by Dot Hutchison is some creepy creepiness layered on top of more creep. All that said, it's kind of a good read, and I did that thing I do sometimes and stay up until 3 a.m., reading it all in one sitting. Maybe that was so the creepiness didn't "creep" into more than one day of my life! The book opens with a young girl being interviewed by the FBI. We learn that they rescued a bunch of teenage girls that were being held captive by a sicko who tattooed huge butterfly wings on their backs and encased them in resin on their 21st birthday to "preserve" their beauty forever. (I wasn't exaggerating about the creepy!) Now they've "flow" free of their prison, but this girl, Maya, is causing the police some trouble, refusing to answer all of their questions and leading them to believe she might be complicit somehow.

The book switches back and forth between her interrogation by police and her flashback narrative that answers those questions, with good effect. This is the kind of book I would have loved as a teenager (I was a huge Stephen King fan back in the day), and while it's more sexually gruesome than his work, it does embody some of the same dark and otherworldly feelings that his writing evokes. Another good comparison would be the pre-Gone Girl Gillian Flynn books. I see this being made into a movie somehow, though it won't be one that I actually go to see.