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Butterfly
After meeting her dream man and hoping to settle down, a supermodel discovers beauty has a price in this African American romance.From her first high-heeled step onto a Paris runway, supermodel Seneca Houston has been a sensation. Ever since, she’s been surrounded by couture clothes, glittering celebrities—and the constant glare of the paparazzi. She’s become muse to designer Luis Navarro, who christens her Butterfly. Now, at thirty-three, Seneca wants the only thing that seems out of reach—a husband, children and a normal life.When her agent offers his secluded villa as a hideaway, Seneca finds both tranquillity and Dr. Eliot Rollins, a renowned plastic surgeon who is quickly captivated by the intelligent woman behind the breathtaking face. But when Seneca decides to retire from modeling, there are repercussions she never expected. Some people want Butterfly to stay trapped in the spotlight, even if it destroys her. Surrounded by tabloid scandal, grasping relatives and friends with hidden agendas, Seneca wonders if anything can be trusted—even her own heart. . . .
332 pages, Kindle Edition
First published July 20, 2010
58 people are currently reading
108 people want to read
About the author
Rochelle Alers
221 books1,060 followersRochelle Alers was born in Manhattan, New York, USA, where she raised. She obtained degrees in Sociology and Psychology, before started to work. She is a member of the Iota Theta Zeta Chapter of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority, Inc., and her interests include gourmet cooking and traveling. She has traveled to countries in North, Central and South America, and Europe. She is also in accomplished in knitting, crocheting and needlepoint.
Published since 1988, today a full-time writer, has been hailed by readers and booksellers alike as one of today's most prolific and popular African-American authors of romance and women's fiction. With more than fifty titles and nearly two million copies of her novels in print, she is a regular on the Waldenbooks, Borders and Essence bestseller lists, regularly chosen by Black Expressions Book Club, and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Gold Pen Award, the Emma Award, Vivian Stephens Award for Excellence in Romance Writing, the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award and the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Award. She also wrote as Susan James and Rena McLeary.
Rochelle Alers lives in a charming hamlet on Long Island.
Published since 1988, today a full-time writer, has been hailed by readers and booksellers alike as one of today's most prolific and popular African-American authors of romance and women's fiction. With more than fifty titles and nearly two million copies of her novels in print, she is a regular on the Waldenbooks, Borders and Essence bestseller lists, regularly chosen by Black Expressions Book Club, and has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Gold Pen Award, the Emma Award, Vivian Stephens Award for Excellence in Romance Writing, the Romantic Times Career Achievement Award and the Zora Neale Hurston Literary Award. She also wrote as Susan James and Rena McLeary.
Rochelle Alers lives in a charming hamlet on Long Island.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
August 6, 2010
Butterfly is the tale of one woman’s life to fly to the top, having to take in heartache, betrayal and life’s hardest lessons by the men in her life. Fans of Rochelle Alers’s Hideaway series might be in for a surprise with her new turn of direction.
Seneca Houston is a twenty year old woman on the brink of a major career move. After two years of hanging out with her friend, Luis Navarro, an upcoming fashion designer that labels her his muse and dubs her “Butterfly” she is introduced to Booth Gordon. Booth is the owner of BGM agency. Having molded the careers of the most successful and powerful celebrities, he knows raw talent when he sees it and he definitely sees it in the young and extremely beautiful Seneca. Eager to gain capital off of his new project, he signs her up under his company and promises her a career as the next supermodel.
Seneca can’t believe her luck. She knows that signing Booth as her agent would open up doors for her but fame comes at a price and Seneca has yet to learn what she will have to give up. The story unfolds as an older Seneca is giving an exclusive tell-all interview to a journalist. She reveals her younger days as she is pulled into the spotlight and the expectations of Booth and all of the people in her life. During this time, Seneca meets Phillip Kingston, a hot NBA player, who depicts everything she wants in a man. A whirlwind affair begins and before long Seneca is sucked into the glamorous lifestyle, shedding her image as Seneca and emerging as Butterfly. Eventually she learns of Phillip’s past and the two split.
After years of strutting the catwalk and dealing with her family drama, Butterfly decides she needs a little R& R to see if she wants to continue to be in the spotlight. Booth offers his vacation home in Dominican Republic where she runs into Dr. Eliot Rollins a well known plastic surgeon. Immediately the two bond and forge a friendship. When tragedy strikes Seneca, Eliot is there to carry her through the storm and for once Seneca, the woman, realizes that she finally have what she always needed: love.
What I did not like about this book was that the better half of the story was spent on Seneca’s early days and her romance with Phillip. There was even more love scenes between Seneca and Phillip I had to stop several times and go back to the description to clarify whether he was the hero of the story or not. It wasn’t until I was 85% (according to my kindle device) through the book, that the hero was introduced. Needless to say I was rather frustrated because I felt that Dr. Eliot Rollins got shorted his part in the story. The two fell in love in two weeks and as the drama was wrapped up, it was fast-forwarded back to the journalist who was in awe of her story and how she finally found Eliot. I had more emotions invested in Phillip and he turned out not to be the “one.”
Overall, I felt slighted at the lack of romance between the hero and heroine. I would have enjoyed this way better if there was more time with Eliot.
Seneca Houston is a twenty year old woman on the brink of a major career move. After two years of hanging out with her friend, Luis Navarro, an upcoming fashion designer that labels her his muse and dubs her “Butterfly” she is introduced to Booth Gordon. Booth is the owner of BGM agency. Having molded the careers of the most successful and powerful celebrities, he knows raw talent when he sees it and he definitely sees it in the young and extremely beautiful Seneca. Eager to gain capital off of his new project, he signs her up under his company and promises her a career as the next supermodel.
Seneca can’t believe her luck. She knows that signing Booth as her agent would open up doors for her but fame comes at a price and Seneca has yet to learn what she will have to give up. The story unfolds as an older Seneca is giving an exclusive tell-all interview to a journalist. She reveals her younger days as she is pulled into the spotlight and the expectations of Booth and all of the people in her life. During this time, Seneca meets Phillip Kingston, a hot NBA player, who depicts everything she wants in a man. A whirlwind affair begins and before long Seneca is sucked into the glamorous lifestyle, shedding her image as Seneca and emerging as Butterfly. Eventually she learns of Phillip’s past and the two split.
After years of strutting the catwalk and dealing with her family drama, Butterfly decides she needs a little R& R to see if she wants to continue to be in the spotlight. Booth offers his vacation home in Dominican Republic where she runs into Dr. Eliot Rollins a well known plastic surgeon. Immediately the two bond and forge a friendship. When tragedy strikes Seneca, Eliot is there to carry her through the storm and for once Seneca, the woman, realizes that she finally have what she always needed: love.
What I did not like about this book was that the better half of the story was spent on Seneca’s early days and her romance with Phillip. There was even more love scenes between Seneca and Phillip I had to stop several times and go back to the description to clarify whether he was the hero of the story or not. It wasn’t until I was 85% (according to my kindle device) through the book, that the hero was introduced. Needless to say I was rather frustrated because I felt that Dr. Eliot Rollins got shorted his part in the story. The two fell in love in two weeks and as the drama was wrapped up, it was fast-forwarded back to the journalist who was in awe of her story and how she finally found Eliot. I had more emotions invested in Phillip and he turned out not to be the “one.”
Overall, I felt slighted at the lack of romance between the hero and heroine. I would have enjoyed this way better if there was more time with Eliot.
June 12, 2013
Excellent book, fell in love with the characters. Must read
January 12, 2011
To say that I was disappointed in this book would be an understatement. I have read and enjoyed other books by this author. However this one did not work on any level for me.
The book starts out when the heroine, Seneca, is in her late 30s and is retired from modelling. A biographer who is doing a book on famous models is at her home interviewing her for her portion of the book. She begins to tell him about her beginnings. At this point the book goes into flashback mode and starts the narrative when Seneca is an 18 year old college student and sometime catalog model.
It is at this point that everything falls apart in the book for me. At first I was a little disoriented because in the prologue talking to the biographer, Seneca is 37 years old. When the flashback narrative begins she is 18 years old. So there is a 19 year difference there. I expected us to flashback to the early 90s. But while she is at a party meeting a handsome athlete, she starts musing about athletes and models getting together and references Tom Brady having just married Gisele Bundchen as a trend starting. And there are other things mentioned that waaay post-date the early 90s such as the movie The Departed. So, okay, we are in 2010 in the flashback. That must mean the flashback is present time and the prologue is 19 years in the future, 2029? Ok I can live with that ....except when she retires she talks about going on Larry King or talking to Barbara Walters to talk about her retirement. Now, I suppose Larry and Babs are still kicking 20 years later, but Larry would be around 97 years old and Barbara would be 100. So at this point, I try to ignore timing inconsistencies and get on with the story.
But then I keep getting distracted by weird little things. Like the info dumps and the repetitive phrases. Every time we meet a new character, that person's background, thoughts, personality traits and a complete description of height, weight, skin color and clothing down to the designers is given to us. We need to know (in detail) what Seneca thinks about each person and what each person (in detail) thinks about Seneca. And oh, btw, we need their complete biography as well. And this is just at the character intro. There were also phrases that popped up a lot. People didn't just talk to each other, they 'crooned'. I checked my kindle and there were 17 instances of the phrase "crooned'. There were also several 'pregnant pauses' and 'peering through lashes.' BTW, I tried to peer at someone through my lashes and I either looked like I was sleeping or squinting. Maybe I don't have long enough lashes?
Also, people were referred to by both their first and last names. A lot. Sometimes we got full middle names as well. At one point Seneca and her brother are having a casual lunch and talking about their mother needing full time care and her brother says 'Dahlia Houston is my mother, I can't abandon her.' Who talks like that?
Okay so, the repetitive phrases and the need to refer to the characters by both names throughout the book, are relatively minor things. Those are nitpicky. In any book the three things that loom large in my opinion are: characters, plot and writing. Overall my opinion of the writing in this story is that it came off as stilted and awkward. Again a huge disappointment because I know this author can be a very good writer. But this book could not prove that for me. Ans really, I can overlook even awkward writing if I am entertained enough. I wasn't.
Which leaves the characters and the plot.
The plot is fairly basic. It is the story of the rise of this woman Seneca Houston to the heights of supermodel super stardom. And I guess her fall. But not really. My first problem with the plot is that for something that takes place in 2010 (..there I go with my timeline again....) it felt very dated. I often felt like I was reading one of those glitzy 80s women's fic books by Judith krantz or Jackie Collins. And the second, probably biggest, problem with he plot is that so much of it hung on Seneca.
Which brings me to characterization.
I hated Seneca. The author did her level best to make Seneca all wonderful things to all people. She was intelligent, strong, articulate, she knew her mind, she had a hard shell and yet she was innocent, vulnerable, and victimized. She was also drop dead gorgeous. Every time she walked in a room, people stopped and stared, men all wanted her. Conversation would cease and all heads would turn. Her face is perfectly symmetrical. Her figure is wand slim, yet curvaceous at the same time. The first time working with a runway choreographer she was told her walk was terrible. so what happens? Seneca tells him to put on some music, she closes her eyes to envision a butterfly taking wing and voila! she has a perfect signature walk! She is plucked out of catalog modelling obscurity and made into the featured model on her very fist, high fashion runway show.
Because Seneca was so many (perfect) things, I could never get a handle on this character. I couldn't find a single trait that made her at all sympathetic to me. She annoyed me because everyone else was wrong and imperfect and she was always right. Every single person turned on her. They were either jealous of her beauty or fame or they were resentful of her money and her connections. With the exception of the fashion designer who only ever designed clothes with her in mind or the photographer who loving photographed her perfectly symmetrical features, not a single person was portrayed positively. Her mother, her brother, her sister, her sister-in-law, her roommate, her boyfriends etc, etc. Every single other character was made into some type of garden variety villain in some way with Seneca as their favorite victim. Rather than making me like her, it actually made me scratch my head at how wildly inconsistent the characters were portrayed. People who were reasonable in one scene turned into raging crazies in the next scene just to create conflict for poor Seneca.
Truthfully, I was disliking this book about 25% of the way through and it should have been a DNF, but I slogged through. Not recommended.
The book starts out when the heroine, Seneca, is in her late 30s and is retired from modelling. A biographer who is doing a book on famous models is at her home interviewing her for her portion of the book. She begins to tell him about her beginnings. At this point the book goes into flashback mode and starts the narrative when Seneca is an 18 year old college student and sometime catalog model.
It is at this point that everything falls apart in the book for me. At first I was a little disoriented because in the prologue talking to the biographer, Seneca is 37 years old. When the flashback narrative begins she is 18 years old. So there is a 19 year difference there. I expected us to flashback to the early 90s. But while she is at a party meeting a handsome athlete, she starts musing about athletes and models getting together and references Tom Brady having just married Gisele Bundchen as a trend starting. And there are other things mentioned that waaay post-date the early 90s such as the movie The Departed. So, okay, we are in 2010 in the flashback. That must mean the flashback is present time and the prologue is 19 years in the future, 2029? Ok I can live with that ....except when she retires she talks about going on Larry King or talking to Barbara Walters to talk about her retirement. Now, I suppose Larry and Babs are still kicking 20 years later, but Larry would be around 97 years old and Barbara would be 100. So at this point, I try to ignore timing inconsistencies and get on with the story.
But then I keep getting distracted by weird little things. Like the info dumps and the repetitive phrases. Every time we meet a new character, that person's background, thoughts, personality traits and a complete description of height, weight, skin color and clothing down to the designers is given to us. We need to know (in detail) what Seneca thinks about each person and what each person (in detail) thinks about Seneca. And oh, btw, we need their complete biography as well. And this is just at the character intro. There were also phrases that popped up a lot. People didn't just talk to each other, they 'crooned'. I checked my kindle and there were 17 instances of the phrase "crooned'. There were also several 'pregnant pauses' and 'peering through lashes.' BTW, I tried to peer at someone through my lashes and I either looked like I was sleeping or squinting. Maybe I don't have long enough lashes?
Also, people were referred to by both their first and last names. A lot. Sometimes we got full middle names as well. At one point Seneca and her brother are having a casual lunch and talking about their mother needing full time care and her brother says 'Dahlia Houston is my mother, I can't abandon her.' Who talks like that?
Okay so, the repetitive phrases and the need to refer to the characters by both names throughout the book, are relatively minor things. Those are nitpicky. In any book the three things that loom large in my opinion are: characters, plot and writing. Overall my opinion of the writing in this story is that it came off as stilted and awkward. Again a huge disappointment because I know this author can be a very good writer. But this book could not prove that for me. Ans really, I can overlook even awkward writing if I am entertained enough. I wasn't.
Which leaves the characters and the plot.
The plot is fairly basic. It is the story of the rise of this woman Seneca Houston to the heights of supermodel super stardom. And I guess her fall. But not really. My first problem with the plot is that for something that takes place in 2010 (..there I go with my timeline again....) it felt very dated. I often felt like I was reading one of those glitzy 80s women's fic books by Judith krantz or Jackie Collins. And the second, probably biggest, problem with he plot is that so much of it hung on Seneca.
Which brings me to characterization.
I hated Seneca. The author did her level best to make Seneca all wonderful things to all people. She was intelligent, strong, articulate, she knew her mind, she had a hard shell and yet she was innocent, vulnerable, and victimized. She was also drop dead gorgeous. Every time she walked in a room, people stopped and stared, men all wanted her. Conversation would cease and all heads would turn. Her face is perfectly symmetrical. Her figure is wand slim, yet curvaceous at the same time. The first time working with a runway choreographer she was told her walk was terrible. so what happens? Seneca tells him to put on some music, she closes her eyes to envision a butterfly taking wing and voila! she has a perfect signature walk! She is plucked out of catalog modelling obscurity and made into the featured model on her very fist, high fashion runway show.
Because Seneca was so many (perfect) things, I could never get a handle on this character. I couldn't find a single trait that made her at all sympathetic to me. She annoyed me because everyone else was wrong and imperfect and she was always right. Every single person turned on her. They were either jealous of her beauty or fame or they were resentful of her money and her connections. With the exception of the fashion designer who only ever designed clothes with her in mind or the photographer who loving photographed her perfectly symmetrical features, not a single person was portrayed positively. Her mother, her brother, her sister, her sister-in-law, her roommate, her boyfriends etc, etc. Every single other character was made into some type of garden variety villain in some way with Seneca as their favorite victim. Rather than making me like her, it actually made me scratch my head at how wildly inconsistent the characters were portrayed. People who were reasonable in one scene turned into raging crazies in the next scene just to create conflict for poor Seneca.
Truthfully, I was disliking this book about 25% of the way through and it should have been a DNF, but I slogged through. Not recommended.
June 29, 2024
What is it about a Butterfly?
I have been a fan of Rochelle Alers's books for many years, so I was delighted to find this one! Butterfly is different from most Rochelle Alerts books, yet has the same magnetic pull that keeps you spellbound until you finish the last page!
This is a book that every girl desiring to be a model should read.
I have been a fan of Rochelle Alers's books for many years, so I was delighted to find this one! Butterfly is different from most Rochelle Alerts books, yet has the same magnetic pull that keeps you spellbound until you finish the last page!
This is a book that every girl desiring to be a model should read.
February 17, 2020
Captivating!
Rochelle Akers has done it again! Butterfly was romantic, spell-binding and very hard to put down! The information about the world of high fashion was enlightening, too. Read It!
Rochelle Akers has done it again! Butterfly was romantic, spell-binding and very hard to put down! The information about the world of high fashion was enlightening, too. Read It!
June 25, 2021
Incredible !
The author has completely entertained me again. Read this book and allow your mind to enjoy the story come to life. I enjoyed the storytelling most divided the character "Butterfly" and "Seneca". I cheered the ending while she found peace and contentment.
The author has completely entertained me again. Read this book and allow your mind to enjoy the story come to life. I enjoyed the storytelling most divided the character "Butterfly" and "Seneca". I cheered the ending while she found peace and contentment.
April 30, 2024
I felt the book started out slow to me. I would read a few pages then put it down. It got a little more interesting when the Butterfly got married to the ball player. Anyways finished it. It was a good story it just wasn’t holding my attention. I gave 5 stars.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 6, 2025
Loved this book
It to ok me a day and a half to finish this book, I felt that I was there with Sends going through everything, I wished there would have been more about the reconciliation b with her family though i.e.Maya not on!y a policing but Jerome also
It to ok me a day and a half to finish this book, I felt that I was there with Sends going through everything, I wished there would have been more about the reconciliation b with her family though i.e.Maya not on!y a policing but Jerome also
December 2, 2017
I was hooked from the very first page. Seneca's journey from new modeling discovery to the super model known as Butterfly and finally to true love, marriage, and motherhood is simply riveting. The depiction of her family members and the men in her life, including her long friendship with designer Luis Navarro adds a depth to her story that takes this novel far beyond the scope of your usual romance novel.
August 29, 2012
I borrowed the ebook for my kindle from the public library. I began the book last Friday @ lunch time. I finished it @ 2:30 am on Saturday. It was the best that I've read by Rochelle Alers. Or maybe it was just the storyline - it was original. I've read many many books over the years, but this book didn't bring back to mind any other book I've read. Great read.
April 19, 2011
I cannot do it. I can't finish it. After the Prolouge, it was over for me. I am really disappointed. It could have been a great book.
May 11, 2011
I Love all of Rochelle Alers Books but I have to say I really dont like this novel. The characters have no depth to them.. I wouldnt read again
December 28, 2011
It had some drama which is expected in the fashion world.
December 22, 2012
Not as attaching as I'd expected.
could-not-finish
October 21, 2011I tried, but I could not finish this book.
June 24, 2013
slow start but good read
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews