White Butterfly

"A powerful and present novel, true to the reality of what can't be seen and must be named." - Suzanne Power, Author, Mentor and Editor

Set on an island off the East coast of Canada, White Butterfly describes a girl's grief of losing her father at a young age. Her idyllic life on Acres Island is shattered. In one terrible moment, all her heroes, confidantes, and inspirations are taken away. Her artist mother, who named Sakura after cherry blossom, is frozen. Her older brother becomes a distant presence. Her best friend Jack is far away in a world of before, a parallel universe free of tragedy. No one can reach Sakura until she finds her love of horses and, through this, meets someone who will change her life forever. Hope offered with a fellow Islander. But nothing is as it seems. Those who understand, those who don't. She discovers her truth and begins to create a new life, where butterflies live free.
White Butterfly is the brilliant debut novel by Saoirse Prendergast which captures the insidious nature of coercive control and its creeping mental strangulation of a person.

"Saoirse Prendergast has walked that fine line between darkness and light. She has created a book that is written with a lightness of touch while, at the same time, dealing with coercive control, a darkness that has long been a weapon used by some men in their relationships with women. The author brings us ordinary, credible people who find themselves in very dark circumstances, people whose lives and losses are unforgettable." - John MacKenna, Author, Broadcaster, Playwright and Poet

"An incredible, insightful portrayal of the solitary and self-loathing world of a victim of coercive control, and the power of evil to destroy lives. A brilliant and much-needed insight into the reverting crime of coercive control." - Louise Crowley, Professor of Family Law University College Cork

"Coercive control is extremely hard to explain and hard for those around us to understand but Saoirse did an excellent job of showing the complexities of it and how it manifests itself." - Lisa Morris, Manager, Amber Women's Refuge, Kilkenny.