Kelly Scarborough on Reinvention, Risk, and the Long Road to Butterfly Games
By: Lauren Whitfield
For Kelly Scarborough, becoming a novelist was not a pivot made lightly. It was the result of years spent balancing a demanding legal career, motherhood, and a quiet longing for a life shaped more by story than schedule.
Her debut historical novel, Butterfly Games, did not arrive quickly. It arrived deliberately, shaped by obsession, research, and a willingness to begin again.
From Law Books to Love Stories
Kelly spent two decades practicing law while raising her family, including navigating the daily realities of being an autism mom. Reading, once her favorite escape, slowly slipped out of her everyday life. Books became something reserved for airplanes and vacations. Life was full, loud, and relentlessly practical.
Then one night changed everything.
At 3:00 a.m., while drafting a legal brief in a silent apartment, an old favorite surfaced in her mind. Désirée by Annemarie Selinko, a novel she had devoured repeatedly as a teenager, returned with surprising force. The story of a French silk merchant’s daughter who crossed paths with Napoleon and later became Queen of Sweden had once transported her completely.
This time, it did more than entertain. It seemed to awaken something that had gone quiet.
Falling into History by Accident
Curiosity sent Kelly down an unexpected path. Late-night research led her to the Bernadotte dynasty, which still occupies Sweden’s throne. She discovered a world of political upheaval, romance, and personal sacrifice that was not widely explored in mainstream historical fiction. While much of Europe’s history is filtered through France and England, Sweden’s story during the same period was equally dramatic.
Then she met Jacquette.
A young Swedish countess emerged from the historical record and refused to let go. Kelly knew almost immediately that this was the story she believed was worth telling.
After leaving the law behind, she made a bold decision. She would write a novel to tell Jacquette’s story.
Learning a Country from the Inside Out
When Kelly began writing Butterfly Games, she had never been to Sweden. She did not speak the language. Her knowledge of Swedish history was limited to what she could find in books.
That did not stop her.
Over the next decade, she immersed herself completely. She studied Swedish, collected antique books, traveled repeatedly to Scandinavia, and walked the same halls her characters once walked. She read personal letters and translated them word by word, tracing emotional lives that history often flattens. This was not surface-level research. It was devotion.
The result is a novel that feels lived in, not reconstructed.
A Heroine Who Makes the Wrong Choices
At the heart of Butterfly Games is Jacquette, an appealing young heroine who does not always choose wisely. She falls into a love triangle with a charismatic prince. She navigates political intrigue in post-Napoleonic Europe. There are secrets, betrayals, and a child whose existence could change everything.
Kelly does not write women as symbols. Jacquette is flawed, impulsive, romantic, and shaped by forces larger than herself.
That realism is intentional.
Kelly draws inspiration from writers like Philippa Gregory and Susanna Kearsley, authors who reimagine the past rather than treating it as a museum exhibit. Her goal is immersion, not argument. She wants readers to feel first and analyze later.
Why the Story Resonates Now
Kelly’s primary audience is women over forty-five, readers who love travel, period drama, and stories rooted in emotional truth. Book club readers, fans of royalty, and readers drawn to Scandinavian settings may find familiar pleasures here.
But the deeper message runs beneath the romance.
As Kelly puts it, some things have not changed for women in hundreds of years. Power still shapes choices. Men still make decisions. Women still shoulder consequences. That tension gives the novel its modern edge.
Letting Go of Perfection
Kelly is clear about what kind of reader she is writing for. She is not aiming to satisfy those who want to debate historical deviations line by line. Her focus is emotional authenticity, not rigid accuracy. She invites readers to suspend disbelief and trust that while she knows her subject deeply, she allows herself creative freedom.
The reward is a story that feels alive rather than preserved.
Writing as Escape and Invitation
At its core, Butterfly Games is about escape. Kelly hopes readers will lose themselves in the world she created and find relief from the noise of their own lives. That desire mirrors why she began writing in the first place. Reading once freed her from crowded thoughts. Writing became a way to offer that same freedom to others.
A Life Still in Motion
Today, Kelly splits her time between the Connecticut Shoreline and South Carolina’s Lowcountry. She shares her life online with humor and warmth, chronicling the never-dull reality of being a mother, a wife, and the human companion of a Shih Tzu muse.
Her journey as an author is far from over. But Butterfly Games stands as proof that reinvention does not need to wait for permission, only persistence.
Butterfly Games is available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
