Lucy has always known she is a surviving twin. She has just never known what that truly means.
Growing up, there have always been moments that felt too strange to explain - a flash of brilliant purple at the corner of her eye, a feeling of being watched over, a warmth she could never quite find the source of. Lucy has learned to push these feelings aside. She is good at that. Pushing things aside. Managing. Getting on with it. And when things feel too big, there is always football - the one place where everything else falls away, where she feels truly, completely herself. One day, she dreams, she will pull on an England shirt and walk out at Wembley.
But when her headteacher suggests she keeps a journal, Lucy begins to write - and something extraordinary writes back.
The replies appear in vivid purple ink, warm and knowing and somehow familiar. The same shade of purple as the butterfly that has followed her, silently and impossibly, all her life. Where are the messages coming from? Who - or what - could possibly know her this well? And why does reading them feel less like discovering something new, and more like coming home?
Full of magic, mystery, and the unstoppable power of the human heart, Whispers of a Purple Butterfly is a funny, tender story about grief, identity, football, and learning to believe - at last - that you are enough.
Perfect for readers aged 8-12, and for every family navigating the difficult, beautiful, and deeply human experience of loss.