"The Butterfly Boy" marks the debut as a novelist of Richard Cawley, television chef ("Thats Entertaining, Ready Steady Cook" and food writer "The Artful Cook, The New English Cookery, Not Quite Vegetarian"). Reflecting his own peripatetic life, this accomplished tale is rooted in Australia but includes excursions to London, Provence and the Italian riviera. Michael is about to celebrate his fortieth birthday but he is still recovering from the death of his lover of twelve years and his return to Sydneys bars and clubs is at best wary. Whilst having drinks with friends, Michael sees for the first time a tall, skinny and black -clad youth whom he immediately nicknames the butterfly boy. It is a fateful moment - the beginning of an obsession at times idyllic, at times painful, sometimes destructive. And the Butterfly Boy - beautiful, capricious, sexy - propels him into the world of high fashion, art and music as he flits - butterfly like - from admirer to admirer. Vividly evoking the gay social whirl of Sydney, the tranquillity of a small Provencal town and the excesses of riviera life, Richard Cawley has created a lushly romantic novel peopled by a clutch of unforgettable characters who remain with the reader long after his tale has been told.