The Fallen Stones: Chasing Butterflies, Discovering Mayan Secrets, and Looking for Hope Along the Way

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.

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.