The butterfly legacy

the long version

Against the backdrop of Ireland's "Great Hunger," the violent struggle of the 1860s to free Ireland, to "The Troubles" of the 1970s, The Butterfly Legacy is a richly rendered story of Nelly, a young Irish girl and her descendants that began when she and an English captain fall in love. Resulting in twins who are separated at birth, their affair ends with the captain's presumed abandonment of Nelly and her subsequent exile to Prince Edward Island, Canada where she enters into an arranged marriage to a man she does not know. The novel traces the adventures of six generations of characters as they encounter adversity and twists of fate, suicide and other family secrets, misguided patriotism and murder.