Diana Marcum
The Fallen Stones
(Little A, March 2022)
On a butterfly farm in the Maya Mountains, a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author of the national bestseller The Tenth Island finds enduring hope during cataclysmic times.
Atop a hill in the rainforest of Belize, next to the ruins of a fallen civilization, a butterfly farm raises the brilliant blue morpho.
What starts out as the worst vacation ever turns into a quest to learn more about the first-of-its-kind farm when journalist Diana Marcum inadvertently discovers this wildlife sanctuary, which is supported by an international live-butterfly trade.
She quickly becomes acquainted with Clive, the whimsical British millionaire whose childhood passion created an industry, and Sebastian, the Maya farm manager whose stern expression belies a soft heart. Before long Diana and her partner, Jack Moody―new to being a couple―have moved into a long-empty jungle house, cohabitating with bats, scorpions, toucans, iguanas, and the vulnerable but resilient butterflies.
Just ahead, although they don’t know it, are a hurricane and a global pandemic.
This warm, funny tale of finding a way forward when the world seems to be falling apart is filled with the beauty of the natural world and a heartfelt cry to protect it―beginning with butterflies.
“This is a deeply human story, and one filled with plenty of hope.”
—Publishers Weekly
Read Publishers Weekly‘s starred review of The Fallen Stones
Watch Diana Marcum with the Los Angeles Times “Monarch butterflies lift spirits along California’s coast”
Diana Marcum is the nationally bestselling author of The Tenth Island: Finding Joy, Beauty, and Unexpected Love in the Azores. A feature writer at the Los Angeles Times, Diana won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for her narrative portraits of farmers, field workers, and others in the drought-stricken towns of California’s Central Valley.