Welcome to Litsy!

Childfinder Naomi is back. Still looking for her long lost sister, she finds herself among the homeless kids in the streets of Portland.
The plot isn‘t that strong, to be honest. It‘s all a bit too convenient and unbelievable.
But does it even matter when Rene Denfeld does her magic with her characters and their traumas? It doesn‘t: Celia, Rich, Naomi, Jerome feel so real.
I want to read everything Denfeld writes.

📸 Amsterdam Light Festival

The second in the series featuring Naomi, the woman who investigates and often finds missing children. This was not quite as captivating as the first in the series but it was still engaging. Naomi is still on a quest to find her sister who she believes is being held and may still be alive. A secondary story is about a young girl who is living on the streets and experiencing the dangers of that life.

Well… I went to the library to grab my $25 Ben and Jerry‘s gift certificate received for reading 10 books this summer and look what just happened to drop into my arms. All authors I admire. I scored!

I enjoyed this one as much as the first book. The two storylines involving missing/abused girls worked really well. There were enough differences to keep me quickly turning pages to find out what connections would be made.

Great mystery, with a few predictable twists but they didn't take away from the read.

#SeriesRead2022 @TheSpineView #TeamSlaughter #Scarathlon #Scarathlon2022 @Clwojick

As if I didn't already have enough books for #Scarathlon 😁

This is my latest library haul. Starting the tagged book tonight to log a few hours before bedtime.

@Clwojick #TeamSlaughter

4 stars Naomi the main character was abducted as a child. Now she is older and investigates missing children's case. She gets a case that gives her tips about her younger sister she left behind when she escaped. She's not police or FBI, just a citizen with painful memories she fights with. There's some trauma triggers. #BookSpinBingo @TheAromaofBooks

Not my usually genre but enjoyed very much, even though my heart was breaking all over the place. As a society, how can we not protect our kids better?

⭐️⭐️⭐️
I enjoyed this book, but not nearly as much as Child Finder. While CF was a dance between delicate innocence and consuming darkness, this book was a lot more raw and gritty. It lacked the creative beauty and intrigue of the first one. I will keep my fingers crossed for more from this author and Naomi. I recommend this book for those who wish to continue following the series. There is profanity and discussions of sexual assault and murder.

Celia knew a bad place when she saw it. #firstlinefriday

I really loved The Child Finder - this is the 2nd in that series, and it was just as incredible! I love watching Naomi finally figure out the pieces to a puzzle she‘s been trying to put back together for most of her life. And the butterflies - beautiful. ❤️

Finish a book in one sitting? Why of course!! Oh MyLanta was this a great book! I honestly couldn‘t put it down until I finished!! Highly recommend!! Goes with “The child finder” 😭😬😱🥺.

I thought The Child Finder was phenomenal, and was stoked to stumble on the sequel while browsing Libby. A shorter book that packs quite a punch, it follows Naomi on the search for her sister while also intertwining with a young homeless girl who takes comfort in butterflies, both real and imagined. I thought it was an excellent addition to the series, though a smidge less absorbing than its predecessor.

⚠️TW for child abuse in both books

As the sequel to The Child Finder, The Butterfly Girl was a compelling read that effortlessly weaves together two story lines: Naomi‘s personal search for her missing sister and the story of Celia, a 12-year-old girl living on the streets of Portland. Although there are plenty of difficult topics in this book (homelessness, child abuse), Denfeld writes with such grace that the overall story feels hopeful. This is my #bookspin pick for April! 4 ⭐️

Here are my #bookspin, #doublespin, and #triplespin books for April. I can‘t wait to dive in! I‘m going to start The Butterfly Girl tonight! 📚

Rene Denfeld is most definitely a go-to author for me. The Enchanted will forever be my favourite but this did not disappoint.
I wish I could articulate how moved I always am by her writing and beyond that, from what I‘ve read about her, she seems to be such an intriguing person.

Last book read in Contemporary-A-Thon & also it was discussed in book club at BookMarkPR.This a sequel novel, I have not read 1st book yet.It is a thriller, so my recommendation is that you should go blind but it is about an investigator who search missing children.The end was too happy but after our interview with the author my perspective changed. She was a foster girl & now is a foster mom.Her experiences motivated her to write the book 3.9⭐️❤️

Bk2 of my #24B4Monday #readathon is finished. Bk2 also of the “Child Finder” series, it definitely lived up to the expectations from Bk1, it continued Naomi‘s story brilliantly while weaving it with that of another lost girl.While Naomi is driven to find the sister she‘s only just remembered having, Celia is driven from fear of what her stepdad will do to the sister she left behind. #Booked2020 #AnimalOnTheCover #PopSugar20 #MeantToReadIn2019 👇👇

Bk2 of my #24B4Monday #readathon is the 2nd book in the “Child Finder” series. I had no idea this existed until recently, the 1st book was in my Top 10 of 2018. Naomi specialises in finding missing children,having been one herself she‘s uniquely qualified for the job.But the last one brought back some memories, of a sister she knows nothing about.And now there‘s Celia, a 12yr old on the run, believing in nothing but the butterflies all around her.

Do any of you do this too? I read The Child Finder by this author quite a while ago. I have been waiting and waiting for her next book (this one) to finally come out. I received it for Christmas (I was rather specific in my requests) and am ecstatic. Only now I can‘t get myself to start reading it. Because then.....then it will be over. So I carry it around with me.
😳😳🙄

I enjoyed this one! Good follow-up to the Child Finder. Creepy without being over the top. I also really rooted for the little girl and her friends-tough little kids!

This was my Christmas and birthday haul. My kids know me lol. My oldest daughter looked at my Litsy TBR and went shopping! Plus my son-in-law got me a bookish iPad cover too! This year Christmas was financially rough for me and my awesome children made up for it. Made me a proud mama. So I‘m not sure where to start! #LittenChristmasBooks

“What the children needed, she told them, was to hear they were loved. Not loved despite what happened to them. Loved including it. That‘s what we all want, Naomi thought...”

”It made Celia think of how butterflies turn poison into protection. The monarch eats milkweed plants and turns them into honest-to-God cyanide, so any predator that eats it will die. Celia liked that. She wished she was capable of killing men for just a taste. She imagined what the streets would look like then. But the poison comes with a cost, she thought. The butterfly, eaten, still dies.”

Loving this cover!

Bk2 in my #libraryhaul is the sequel to The Child Finder, a book I read in 2017. After the events in Bk1, Naomi, an investigator specialising in child abductions, is now dealing with the memories of a sister lost when she was an abducted child herself. Following a lead to Portland, Oregon, she finds that young girls have been going missing for months, only to be found later in the river. I really liked the 1st book so have high hopes for this.

This book should come with a trigger warning. It has homelessness and molestation and was really hard to listen to. A beautiful story about resilience and the difficulty it takes to keep hope in times of dire needs.

This story is labeled as a thriller psychological suspense and while it had those components my initial feeling of the story is that what makes it scary is that the author describes homelessness so accurately. #Teamslaughter

Start this book yesterday. I am working my way through two books in this last week. 1.) NO Exit and 2.) The Butterfly Girl. I am currently up to Chapter 16 to 26 today. #TeamSlaughter @Clwojick

Also are you all ready for #AllHallowsRead I can't wait to open my box tomorrow!

This was a beautifully written book. Rene Denfeld shows a side of homeless youth that most people don't understand, like she did in The Enchanted with death row inmates. She creates amazing empathy as a reader and her characters are so complex. While this book is technically a mystery I think it was so much more. It will certainly make me look at the homeless in my own city under a while new light.

Next up...

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ I was a little perplexed when I saw that The Child Hunter had a sequel, but I knew I had to read it. This one wasn't an easy read--you can apply pretty much all the trigger warnings to this book, but it was a beautiful read. Denfield's language is evocative and she can write about even the ugliest things in a way that is still beautiful. My one caveat is that I would definitely recommend reading The Child Finder before this one.

Such beautiful writing.

So good! I've loved every book by this author. #catsoflitsy

#librarybookhaul

I‘m failing super hard at reading this slowly and savouring every word. I was on page 40 this morning and I cannot stop reading.

Five stars, fan-freaking-tastic, all the good review things. This was amazing. I loved The Child Finder (loved it even more upon rereading), and this did not disappoint. As always, the children were just as richly drawn as the adults, which shows the respect Denfeld has for children. The writing was beautiful, and while I kind of assumed how things would turn out, I liked the way it was handled. A must read if you liked The Child Finder.

Sign up for The Butterfly Girl drawing at https://www.bluestockingreviews.com/contact-me Registration ends 9/30/19. Book publishing 10/1/19.

Finished listening to this book on audio—what an exciting finale! And while two characters were on the train through the forest, I was on a train through Baltimore! (Or should‘ve been, if Amtrak wasn‘t delayed 😤)
Some of the landscape evokes the industrial unkempt area of Portland that provides setting for the book...

The Butterfly Girl is the sequel to Child Finder, a novel I LOVED!! This was just as good if not better. I am in love with Rene Denfeld's writing 💜.

June 2019
It‘s been a busy month.
Favorite: Ask Again, Yes

Another great novel by Rene Denfeld. Difficult subject matter, but still full of hope.

Lots of great books today. I‘m most excited about the tagged book. My kids were happy too with all the books I got for them. #BookExpo

Flying through this advanced copy. So heartbreaking.