In the end, it seemed that Michael had fully realized that he had to move on, take risks, and step off the path of grief and self-recrimination. He took deliberate steps in a new direction, and the reader saw the progress, and the effects of his actions.

But for Rebecca, on the other hand, the reader didn’t get to witness as much, and I was left wishing I’d seen more of her own emergence from her former life into a new one. She realizes that she’s too easily pushed by others, and has been living a fraction of her life inside the security of her routine and her lack of connection with people, but the actions she takes to counter her routine aren’t entirely seen. She mentions that she’s going to take a step in a different direction, one that might change her life, but the outcome of that action is never mentioned.

It seemed unfair to me that while I knew so many aspects of Michael’s future, I didn’t know all the elements of Rebecca’s, as much as I was rooting for them both. With the degree of pain they were both in at the start, I wanted more assurance of both characters’ healing.

That said, both characters transform, grow up, and move out of a shell of protective grief into the raw and scary challenge of taking risks and caring about another person again. And the risk of the characters lives echoes the risk of the book itself. The ending scenes were so powerful and touching, I cried.

Using that list as a guideline, I challenge you to read this book. The gauntlet has been thrown. This book, and its plot, are incredibly powerful, and incredibly brave. To base a major conflict on questioning the sexuality of the hero, and to emphasize love and emotional commitment over gender and sexual politics, is a big, powerful, brave, and onerous task to undertake in a romance novel. I know if I described this to some friends who like romance, the minute I got to the hero’s gay relationship, they’d balk. Knight doesn’t pay lip service to the idea of going from a committed gay relationship to a heterosexual one, either. The fact that Michael has found himself attracted to a woman is noticed by all of his friends, and his family, and Alex’s family. And Rebecca isn’t always sure what to make of Michael’s past relationship either, or how to go about talking to him or anyone else about it.

But like most people who face life-or-death situations, the only things that truly matter are not what people think, or what people say. It’s the people who love you and the people you love who matter. Love is real, it is painful, it is powerful, and it is brave, much like this book.

- Sarah, SmartBitchesTrashyBooks.com

There are some books you just have to read from beginning to end without pause. This is the case with Deidre Knight’s Butterfly Tattoo, a contemporary romance that has you settling in and reading for the long haul. Touching all the right chords, this is the story of love lost, love found and finding love with in. It’s about the scars you can see and the ones that are hidden, the ones that reside deep in your soul and cause a heart to be broken. Ms. Knight’s lyrical dialogue and ability to write cleanly what the heart wishes to express is magic, and her story about a man, a woman and a child finding each other after individual tragedy is telling of her talent.

What do you do when you’ve lost the love of your life? How do you cope when your partner, your co-parent, the person you thought you would spend eternity with dies? How do you get past a heart ache so big you thought that just putting one foot in front of the other was all you had energy for? Michael asks himself those questions every day since his life partner Alex died leaving him to raise their only daughter Andrea. When he meets Rebecca he begins to hope that perhaps his life could be about more than survival.
Rebecca has similar hopes. Having been brutally attacked, left for dead and terribly scarred for life, she has no illusions about love. But then she meets Michael. Together they begin to test the waters and to begin to hope again.

This story really epitomizes and reinforces that love is about the person – not their color, creed, political affiliation or sexual orientation. Michael’s first true love, the person whom he has a daughter with was a man. He loved him with a great passion. His death crushed him. Meeting Rebecca and falling in love with her, he knows what he has always known – that it’s the person you fall in love with. And taking the journey with both Michael and Rebecca you understand this very clearly.

Ms. Knight takes away all the artifice and jargon and simply states through the conversations and thought processes of each character how important it is to love with unbiased freedom. Each chapter is written from a character’s point of view. And she does this seamlessly. She has a lyrical style that allows you to understand each characters thoughts and struggles; the dialogue flows and ebbs and you ride the wave.

I cried a lot while reading this book. The sadness and tragedy Rebecca, Michael and Andrea overcome is touching. She uses a deft pen to bring a myriad of emotions to the reader and compels you to love them. Ms. Knight’s thoughtful and understated approach will entice and enchant you and make you think; and most of all, fall in love with her book.

- Marisa O'Neill, RomanceNovel.tv, 4.7 Stars

DEAR AUTHOR

Dear Ms. Knight,

There are so many blocks against reading this book that I wonder you ever had the audacity to put pen to paper. The story is told from the first person present tense in alternating points of view. It features a gay/bisexual/quasi-queer man who purportedly falls in love with a Hollywood actress. I got to the end of chapter 1 and emailed your editor, Angela James, and said, what the hell have you sent me?

Her response was an inscrutable admonishment, “keep reading.” And so I did. I haven’t said word one to Angela about the book since she sent it. The truth is that I really struggled to put into words how strongly I felt about the book.

Rebecca O’Neill was starring in a hit comedic primetime drama when a stalker flayed her face and her body scarring her dramatically and ending her promising acting career. She recovered and moved behind the scenes to development. Recovery, though, is a broad term. Rebecca still has panic attacks. She sometimes is scared by the slightest wrong movement at night. She hasn’t dated in three years, hasn’t been intimate since before the attack. Her body bears the history of her attack.

Yet Rebecca is strong in other ways. She can talk about her attack. She acknowledges her weakness. She is brave and each day moving forward is a triumph.

Michael Warner is struggling to get his feet under him and to meet the challenge of each new day after his partner of 12 years was killed in a drunk driving accident. Their daughter, Andie, has stopped calling him Daddy. The two are broken with Andie mostly silent and Michael inept at being a father by himself, consumed by the grief over Alex and self hatred at his inability to keep their family together.

Used to be I treasured putting Andrea to bed; it was something precious, and if Alex got home in time, we did it together. It always felt like the three of us had really formed a family then. Now I only want to close up shop at night. I can barely focus on her bedtime story anymore, much less enjoy reading it to her.
She knows it, too. She knows it, but I don’t think she even cares at this point. In fact, I’m pretty sure she’d rather live with anyone else but me.

One day, Andie comes to the set with Michael and is introduced to Rebecca and sees Rebecca’s scars. Andie feels an instantaneous connection for she, too, has a significant scar on her leg. A scar that stems from being in the same car accident that killed her Daddy, Alex.

Michael grabs onto this and invites Rebecca to their home. Andie’s interest in Rebecca provides cover for his own. He tells himself that he really isn’t flirting with Rebecca, that he isn’t being disloyal to Alex’s memory. But his attraction to Rebecca is strong and he’s the only one who really isn’t confused about it. After all, Alex was his only male partner and it was love that brought them together.

It is Michael’s capacity for love that allows one to overcome these barriers of gender-based sexuality. Michael isn’t defined by who he loves, but his ability to love.

> Continued