Review: The Missing Butterfly

Title: The Missing Butterfly
Series: The Missing Butterfly
Author: Megan Derr
Publisher: Less Than Three Press
Publication Date: 19 January 2010
Reviewed Format: ebook
Length: 51,000 words

Rating: 4 out of 5

Blurb:
Cassidy Monarch had dreams—to sing, to be famous, to tour the world at the head of his own rock band. Then his parents were killed in a tragic accident, leaving him to raise his two siblings. Determined to hold on to what remained of his family, Cassidy settled into an ordinary life, his dreams of fame reduced to occasional nights of singing at karaoke dives. But his careful, ordinary life began to fray with his new job, and the beautiful, charming boss who reminds him of all the things he tried to stop wanting.

Malcolm Osborne is a classic rags to riches story, a foster child who wound up with the perfect family and more money than he knows what to do with. He's wealthy, beautiful, successful, and completely miserable. Then he hires a new worker for his office, a young, hard-working man with a sadness in his eyes that Malcolm aches to banish, hoping that in doing so he will be rid of his own loneliness as well.

Review:

Main Characters:
Cassidy is a man who had adulthood thrust upon him well before he was ready when his parents were killed by a drunk driver, leaving him to raise his two younger siblings at the tender age of 18. Working a food service job from Hell to make ends meet and keep Social Services off his back, he had to set aside his dreams of rock super stardom with his band, Four Butterflies. Dreams are not always so easily pushed away, though, and Cassidy keeps picking the scab by spending weekends singing karaoke in a city two hours away or writing songs. His coworkers have no idea that beneath his frightened-rabbit exterior beats the passionate heart of a bad boy.

Although he'd like someone to be with, especially with his younger siblings growing up and leaving the nest, a bad ending to his single attempt at a relationship has left him gun-shy. Random hook-ups have lost their appeal, and the fact that he's lusting after his boss is just salt in the wound.

I'm conflicted on Cassidy. On one hand, I really like him--it's admirable that he was able to raise his siblings without resentment, and he really is a sweetheart. On the other hand, the aforementioned frightened-rabbit exterior gets a bit wearing. I kept waiting for him to grow up just a little bit more. The kicker that really made me want to shake him was in the scene in which Malcolm finally connected the dots:

Chasing Cassidy out the side entrance, he raced down the alleyway, lunging at the last moment. "Cassidy!" Grasping Cassidy's arm, yanking hard, he nearly sent them both crashing to the crowd, but managed at the last moment to twist enough he landed hard against the wall. His breath wooshed out of him, and he barely managed to keep hold of Cassidy. "Cass!"

Abruptly Cassidy froze, looking like nothing so much as a terrified, wide-eyed cat.

Moving without real thought, Malcolm reached up with one hand to lightly cup Cassidy's face. "Why did you run? Why...why would you hide this?"

Cassidy only stared at him a moment longer, then abruptly began to tremble. "B-because I'm not supposed to do it," he said, then began to try and struggle to get free. "Let me go."

His youngest sibling is 18, well past the point at which he could be removed from Cassidy's home. Obviously his employer doesn't care that he has tattoos and sings karaoke, given that his employer is in the dive to recognize him, so why the overwhelming fear?

Once Cassidy and Malcolm have begun their relationship, the fear makes a little more sense--Malcolm is, after all, Cassidy's boss--but his similar reaction to a situation with his former band just struck me as also a bit over the top.

Malcolm is a foster care kid who discovered he had a wealthy globe-trotting uncle when he was a teenager. When his uncle died shortly thereafter, Malcolm was left with millions--and a hole in his life. He has enough money to never need to work another day, but he can't imagine the life of a lonely jet-setter. He passes time as head manager of accounting for Amberton-Lord Entertainments for lack of anything better to do. He occasionally splurges to playfully poke at his siblings (especially when it comes to his car) and owns houses around the world that he rarely visits.

Malcolm has a string of bad relationships to his name; he prefers bad boys but doesn't have the best taste in them, resulting in more than one unsavory break-up. The latest tops the cake, though, when Malcolm has to fend off not only his ex but also his buddies with nothing but a baseball bat. He's ready to begin to re-evaluate his tastes, but can't seem to shake that bad boy craving.

Malcolm was much steadier than Cassidy, but I'm still conflicted on him, too. He is good for Cassidy, I think, with a gentle regard for him and a protective streak that's quite charming. I'm less fond of other aspects of his personality, though. He's snarky to a fault with his brothers (more on this later), he strikes me as a little irresponsible (given how often he hides in Antoine's office), and then there's the manipulation. After he finds out where Cassidy worked that gave him such a dismal outlook on employment, Malcolm buys the diner just so he can fire the manager that so scarred Cassidy. Further, after he realizes that Cassidy is the missing member of the band playing the company's picnic, he buys off the group's current lead singer to ensure that they'll need a new one for the picnic--and there Cassidy will be. They're sweet gestures on paper, but kind of creepy in reality. It would've been nicer to see the situations resolved in some way that didn't involve throwing money at them.

Chemistry:
Cassidy and Malcolm are adorable together. The attraction between them is apparent (to everyone but Cassidy and Malcolm, at least) and the tension is perfect. My issues with Malcolm's monetary solutions aside, I think they balance each other well, both bringing something to the table to contribute to the relationship. The sex is hot (and not overly graphic, although some of it is still not safe for work), but I find I prefer them in their downtime. (My favorite little blurb is this:

"Yes," Malcolm said, carefully not thinking about the few moments when he heard Cassidy sing—catching Cassidy singing in the kitchen while he cooked or cleaned, singing in the car, the shower, and most precious of all were those nights they lay in bed and Cassidy sang just for him.

Just too sweet!)

Secondary Characters:
My trend of being conflicted on characters continues with the supporting cast. I hated some of them. Antoine and Carlos (Malcolm's foster brothers), though I suspect they are popular, drove me absolutely batshit insane. I don't think they had a single conversation with Malcolm that didn't involve one threatening to kill another or general threats of some variety or just a level of snark that went completely overboard. I never felt that I got a sense of them beyond snark generators... and I really didn't like the snark. I found myself skimming scenes that included them. The rest of the supporting cast was much better. Lindsay and Denny (Cassidy's siblings), for example, were also snarky but not so overblown; they struck a much better balance.

Story:
The story follows not only Cassidy and Malcolm's relationship, but also Cassidy's dream. It's generally well-paced, although there are parts where it does drag a little, particularly before Malcolm twigs to the reality of Cassidy. There are also some rather silly parts--Cassidy tipping the pizza delivery guy with his tongue springs to mind--but it's otherwise quite well done, tying together nicely as it speeds toward the ending.

Writing:
There are a lot of technical errors in this book--typos, grammatical errors, missing words, things that should have been caught in editing. (Hell, even one of my illustrative selections has an error in it.) It's distracting and occasionally aggravating. A few pieces of information got lost in the shuffle, too--the name of Cassidy's band post-Cassidy is referred to a few different ways, for example. If you don't read when a mental red pen, though, it's easy to move past the writing flaws to get into the meat beneath.

Overall:
This book is a light, inoffensive story with likeable characters that are easy to root for, with more focus on romance than conflict. Despite my complaints, I love this book--flaws and all, it's one of my desert island reads.