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A Cluster of Separate Sparks
An exotic locale, a winning heroine, a series of ingenious plot twists, and a subtle sense of humour - Joan Aiken has once again combined these classic elements with her own special touch to make a rich, exciting, and thoroughly enjoyable novel.
Intelligent and spirited Georgia March flies to the beautiful Greek island of Dendros to meet her cousin Sweden, but upon arrival finds her lying in a pool of blood . . .
Georgia has come to the paradise island of Dendros in search of a new life, a new job, and a way to forget about her lost lover. Instead, her adventure begins with tragedy and takes her to a mountain-top fortress – home to a powerful multi-millionaire, his jet set friends and a school for unusual children. In this stunning Greek hideaway Georgia is hired as a teacher, but as she gets to know the children and their unconventional parents she becomes ensnared in a deadly international mystery.
Our not-so hapless heroine must survive a series of bizarre brushes with death, but also deal with the attentions of a strangely charming man – is he really the wickedest man on the island? Somebody certainly wants her gone as she inches closer and closer to uncovering the truth about Sweden’s death . . .
Joan Aiken reveals a strong heroine, a breathtaking backdrop and shocking plot twists – The Butterfly Picnic has all the elements of a holiday romance with a dark underside of suspense.
Intelligent and spirited Georgia March flies to the beautiful Greek island of Dendros to meet her cousin Sweden, but upon arrival finds her lying in a pool of blood . . .
Georgia has come to the paradise island of Dendros in search of a new life, a new job, and a way to forget about her lost lover. Instead, her adventure begins with tragedy and takes her to a mountain-top fortress – home to a powerful multi-millionaire, his jet set friends and a school for unusual children. In this stunning Greek hideaway Georgia is hired as a teacher, but as she gets to know the children and their unconventional parents she becomes ensnared in a deadly international mystery.
Our not-so hapless heroine must survive a series of bizarre brushes with death, but also deal with the attentions of a strangely charming man – is he really the wickedest man on the island? Somebody certainly wants her gone as she inches closer and closer to uncovering the truth about Sweden’s death . . .
Joan Aiken reveals a strong heroine, a breathtaking backdrop and shocking plot twists – The Butterfly Picnic has all the elements of a holiday romance with a dark underside of suspense.
231 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1972
About the author
Joan Aiken
335 books607 followersJoan Aiken was a much loved English writer who received the MBE for services to Children's Literature. She was known as a writer of wild fantasy, Gothic novels and short stories.
She was born in Rye, East Sussex, into a family of writers, including her father, Conrad Aiken (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry), and her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge. She worked for the United Nations Information Office during the second world war, and then as an editor and freelance on Argosy magazine before she started writing full time, mainly children's books and thrillers. For her books she received the Guardian Award (1969) and the Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972).
Her most popular series, the "Wolves Chronicles" which began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, was set in an elaborate alternate period of history in a Britain in which James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution,and so supporters of the House of Hanover continually plot to overthrow the Stuart Kings. These books also feature cockney urchin heroine Dido Twite and her adventures and travels all over the world.
Another series of children's books about Arabel and her raven Mortimer are illustrated by Quentin Blake, and have been shown on the BBC as Jackanory and drama series. Others including the much loved Necklace of Raindrops and award winning Kingdom Under the Sea are illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski.
Her many novels for adults include several that continue or complement novels by Jane Austen. These include Mansfield Revisited and Jane Fairfax.
Aiken was a lifelong fan of ghost stories. She set her adult supernatural novel The Haunting of Lamb House at Lamb House in Rye (now a National Trust property). This ghost story recounts in fictional form an alleged haunting experienced by two former residents of the house, Henry James and E. F. Benson, both of whom also wrote ghost stories. Aiken's father, Conrad Aiken, also authored a small number of notable ghost stories.
She was born in Rye, East Sussex, into a family of writers, including her father, Conrad Aiken (who won a Pulitzer Prize for his poetry), and her sister, Jane Aiken Hodge. She worked for the United Nations Information Office during the second world war, and then as an editor and freelance on Argosy magazine before she started writing full time, mainly children's books and thrillers. For her books she received the Guardian Award (1969) and the Edgar Allan Poe Award (1972).
Her most popular series, the "Wolves Chronicles" which began with The Wolves of Willoughby Chase, was set in an elaborate alternate period of history in a Britain in which James II was never deposed in the Glorious Revolution,and so supporters of the House of Hanover continually plot to overthrow the Stuart Kings. These books also feature cockney urchin heroine Dido Twite and her adventures and travels all over the world.
Another series of children's books about Arabel and her raven Mortimer are illustrated by Quentin Blake, and have been shown on the BBC as Jackanory and drama series. Others including the much loved Necklace of Raindrops and award winning Kingdom Under the Sea are illustrated by Jan Pieńkowski.
Her many novels for adults include several that continue or complement novels by Jane Austen. These include Mansfield Revisited and Jane Fairfax.
Aiken was a lifelong fan of ghost stories. She set her adult supernatural novel The Haunting of Lamb House at Lamb House in Rye (now a National Trust property). This ghost story recounts in fictional form an alleged haunting experienced by two former residents of the house, Henry James and E. F. Benson, both of whom also wrote ghost stories. Aiken's father, Conrad Aiken, also authored a small number of notable ghost stories.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
November 16, 2012
Having read a great deal of Mary Stewart when I was a young teenager, I theorize that Aiken was actually poking subtle fun at the Gothic genre. The "orphan with six elder brothers" and her "half Greek, half Chinese father and half Russian, half French mother" stuff at the beginning is just absurd enough to feel like satire, and all the things that happen to the heroine, including the whack romance at the end, contribute to the heightened sense of ridiculousness. Plus there's the straight-up reference to Stewart's "My Brother Michael" early on, another Greek-set Gothic. If it's not satire... well, I think she just wasn't very good at writing in this genre. But having read her children's Gothics, I rather think it's meant to be silly.
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July 29, 2011One of my all time favorite books!!! Sort of an homage to Mary Stewart although I loved it as much as any of Stewart's books and that's saying a lot!
March 29, 2018
This is exactly what one would expect from the sentence, "The author of the totally insane Dido Twite books, in which pink whales are spotted off New England and sinister plots to roll St. Paul's into the ocean are foiled by a girl on an elephant, writes a Gothic."
It functions perfectly well as a Gothic in the atmospheric and well-written Mary Stewart style: a young woman with a tragic past arrives in a gorgeously described Greece, and immediately something violent happens, attempts are made on her life, and romantic interests who might be villains appear. It's extremely page-turny.
It's also a hilarious parody of the form. The attempts on the heroine's life are extraordinary inventive and frequent. No one seems to care that people they supposedly love, or just people they know, are dropping like flies. The hero/villains are not physically attractive. There is an oubliette in the kitchen, and a sauna covered in bees; the heroine sings the bees to sleep, allowing her to make her escape. At one point I thought there was an army of clones, but that turned out to be a misunderstanding.
If you obtain this, standard warning for mysteries or Gothics written before 1980, ie, mild racial stereotyping (in this case, largely or possibly entirely parodying racial stereotyping in other Gothics) and now-offensive terminology like "Mongol" for "Downs syndrome."
The heroine, having witnessed the murder of her cousin, is bundled off into an airplane heading home because the body has vanished and the cops claim she hallucinated the whole thing. However, luckily for her, it has been hijacked by Arab guerillas, one of whom she had coincidentally struck up a conversation with on the transmigration of souls earlier that day.
He sympathizes with her demand to drop her off rather than taking her to their desert training camp, and the guerillas are completely nice and reasonable, so they land on the other side of the island, right in front of the Gothic school for children who are subjects of a seriously bizarre plot, where all the other important characters are hanging out.
Later, the guerillas reappear in the employ of the clone school's headmaster, as the other guerillas kicked them out because the camp was over-crowded, so they had to find some employment.
It functions perfectly well as a Gothic in the atmospheric and well-written Mary Stewart style: a young woman with a tragic past arrives in a gorgeously described Greece, and immediately something violent happens, attempts are made on her life, and romantic interests who might be villains appear. It's extremely page-turny.
It's also a hilarious parody of the form. The attempts on the heroine's life are extraordinary inventive and frequent. No one seems to care that people they supposedly love, or just people they know, are dropping like flies. The hero/villains are not physically attractive. There is an oubliette in the kitchen, and a sauna covered in bees; the heroine sings the bees to sleep, allowing her to make her escape. At one point I thought there was an army of clones, but that turned out to be a misunderstanding.
If you obtain this, standard warning for mysteries or Gothics written before 1980, ie, mild racial stereotyping (in this case, largely or possibly entirely parodying racial stereotyping in other Gothics) and now-offensive terminology like "Mongol" for "Downs syndrome."
The heroine, having witnessed the murder of her cousin, is bundled off into an airplane heading home because the body has vanished and the cops claim she hallucinated the whole thing. However, luckily for her, it has been hijacked by Arab guerillas, one of whom she had coincidentally struck up a conversation with on the transmigration of souls earlier that day.
He sympathizes with her demand to drop her off rather than taking her to their desert training camp, and the guerillas are completely nice and reasonable, so they land on the other side of the island, right in front of the Gothic school for children who are subjects of a seriously bizarre plot, where all the other important characters are hanging out.
Later, the guerillas reappear in the employ of the clone school's headmaster, as the other guerillas kicked them out because the camp was over-crowded, so they had to find some employment.
May 28, 2023
As a child this was completely captivating: the heroine gets locked in a kiln, attacked by bees, falls through trap doors, all in an exotic Greek setting. As an adult it seemed a little ridiculous and three-stoogeish. I'd forgotten the part about the Palestinian hijackers and the Jane Eyre ending.
May 3, 2019
On the fictional island of Dendros, home to an extraordinary fictional species of butterflies, everyone is nice--even the terrorists and murderers. That's what makes this romantic comedy a novel of suspense. Georgia Marsh, who describes herself only as envying her cousin's "strong resemblance to Garbo" and mourning a deceased lover, is welcomed to the island by some and encouraged to leave by others, including enough eligible men to reconcile anybody to any number of Hollywood-beauty cousins...but one or more of these very nice people is trying to kill her. To survive she has to find out not only which ones are dangerous, but why. And whoever they are, they'll probably be very nice, in between locking her in pottery kilns, dropping her down oubliettes, or perhaps just shooting her.
It's a parody of spy stories, of mysteries, of romances, and of "psychodramas," and it's another very entertaining novel one can enjoy reading more than once. (When I posted a review on Blogspot, last year, I had fun looking up the real-world species from which Aiken apparently spliced characteristics to invent the butterflies of Dendros. They are not to be overlooked as a sort of character that shapes the plot...even though nothing really like them exists.)
It's a parody of spy stories, of mysteries, of romances, and of "psychodramas," and it's another very entertaining novel one can enjoy reading more than once. (When I posted a review on Blogspot, last year, I had fun looking up the real-world species from which Aiken apparently spliced characteristics to invent the butterflies of Dendros. They are not to be overlooked as a sort of character that shapes the plot...even though nothing really like them exists.)
March 30, 2026
Out of sorts for several years after the death of her lover, Georgia Marsh has been knocking around various teaching jobs throughout Europe when her psychiatrist cousin invites her to a Greek island where a job teaching special needs children awaits. But when that cousin is murdered, things take a turn for the dangerous and Georgia finds herself embroiled in all sorts of complications. Aiken name drops Mary Stewart and this novel is definitely Mary Stewart territory, enlivened by Georgia's sense of the ridiculousness of it all, even as she gets into one nearly deadly scrape after another and the reader will smile while turning the pages.
May 1, 2025
This is one of the best books of all time. The heroine is perfectly lost and at the end of her rope, but meets every impossible challenge with wry good humor. She keeps getting dropped into ludicrous situations and figures her way out of all of them. The central mystery of the novel is set up in the first sentence: who killed Sweden? Georgia Marsh stays one step ahead of all the various people who try to do her in and saves the day in unexpected ways, going from unemployed governess to a life she never could have imagined was possible.
One of my top three favorite books.
One of my top three favorite books.
February 28, 2018
I remember reading this light mystery as a kid, and loving it. Many years later, the mystery part doesn't hold together all that well...but it's still charming and delightful. Brought back good memories.
September 6, 2020
This one was fun. It doesn’t take itself seriously at all and is ridiculous on purpose. Think Nancy Drew for adults that is also poking fun at itself. I enjoyed the ending.
September 11, 2025
Now this is the quality unhinged 70s suspense romance I'm here for!
April 28, 2014
I was looking for a good old Gothic suspense story and Joan Aiken usually delivers. Not this time. The story is not very cohesive and I often wondered how the author jumped from one conclusion to another when I didn't see anything pointing to it. And the whole premise was rather weird! If this were the first draft of the story and I were her agent I'd point out that the premise for the story was pretty good but it needed a lot of rewrites and perhaps a plot change, but to say more about that would be a spoiler. And did I mention that there are so many characters and I'd hasten to say that none of them are "normal".
The story: Georgia Marsh comes to the Greek island of Dendros at the behest of her cousin Sweden, a psychiatrist, who runs her little yacht from Greece to Beirut and elsewhere, I imagine. Georgia is being offered a teaching job but she really has no teaching credentials. There's the delays while Georgia is waiting for her cousin's boat to arrive and then when it does, Georgia is so sleepy that she falls asleep on the berth. On awakening she sees her cousin get stabbed but not who did it. By accident she ends up on a mountaintop fortress where the millionaire that lives there is the one that wanted her to teach the children that he keeps there- rich ones belonging to people of notoriety and orphans- hundreds of kids. Weird! Let's just say that many dangers befall Georgia before the rather strange ending. And the title? What does it mean? Maybe it should be called "A Cluster of Separate Ideas".
The story: Georgia Marsh comes to the Greek island of Dendros at the behest of her cousin Sweden, a psychiatrist, who runs her little yacht from Greece to Beirut and elsewhere, I imagine. Georgia is being offered a teaching job but she really has no teaching credentials. There's the delays while Georgia is waiting for her cousin's boat to arrive and then when it does, Georgia is so sleepy that she falls asleep on the berth. On awakening she sees her cousin get stabbed but not who did it. By accident she ends up on a mountaintop fortress where the millionaire that lives there is the one that wanted her to teach the children that he keeps there- rich ones belonging to people of notoriety and orphans- hundreds of kids. Weird! Let's just say that many dangers befall Georgia before the rather strange ending. And the title? What does it mean? Maybe it should be called "A Cluster of Separate Ideas".
July 9, 2013
This is a book I might end up picking up again, because I enjoyed the writing style and Joan Aiken is a writer I normally like. What tripped me up was how the main character seemed to keep falling into and out of bad situations, which made me not care that much about her. It just didn't hold my attention enough for me to find out how the character got out of the most recent cliffhanger at the end of one chapter.
August 28, 2009
I have liked this author's other books but this one was just weird. It was a 1973 copyright and very stuck in its era. A woman visits her cousin on the Greek Island of Dendros and runs into drama and intrigue and murder. The bizarre twist with the mind control drugs and gas bombs just didn't move me. So I give it a weird.
December 23, 2020
Another of my favorite Aiken gothics. Over the top, quirky escapism with her signature wit.
Note: novels from this era make being young, British, and impecunious sound like such fun. Before my era, sadly.
Note: novels from this era make being young, British, and impecunious sound like such fun. Before my era, sadly.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews