Look into the lace . . . When the eyes begin to fill with tears and the patience is long exhausted, there will appear a glimpse of something not quite seen... In this moment, an image will begin to form . . . in the space between what is real and what is only imagined.Can you read your future in a piece of lace? All of the Whitney women can. But the last time Towner read, it killed her sister and nearly robbed Towner of her own sanity.
Towner Whitney, a dazed young woman descended from a long line of mind readers and fortune tellers, has survived numerous traumas and returned to her hometown of Salem, Mass., to recover. Any tranquility in her life is short-lived when her beloved great-aunt Eva drowns under circumstances suggesting foul play. Towner's suspicions are taken with a grain of salt given her history of hallucinatory visions and self-harm. The mystery enmeshes local cop John Rafferty, who had left the pressures of big city police work for a quieter life in Salem and now finds himself falling for the enigmatic Towner as he mourns Eva and delves into the history of the eccentric Whitney clan.
The Lace Reader was definitely a strange book, with many different layers to it. Towner is the main voice of the book, but the reader can never be sure if what is happening is real or imagined, given Towner's history of hallucinations and time spent in a mental hospital. Amongst witches and religious fanatics, Towner and Rafferty are on quest to discover what happened to Eva, taking the reader on a bizarre ride, full of mysterious and peculiar goings-on.
I can't say I loved this book, but I enjoyed it to a certain extent. Once I got the hang of how the story was being told, I enjoyed it more. It took me some time to get into the story at first because it was all so confusing, trying to keep things straight. And even when I thought I had things figured out, I discovered I was wrong. The ending was so unexpected; I liked that. And I loved Rafferty. I wouldn't mind reading more about the characters in The Lace Reader. If Brunonia Barry ever decides to write a sequel, I just may read it.
Also, having just read The Heretic's Daughter, which was also set in Salem, albeit during the witch trials of the 1600s, I more fully understood the history of Salem and all the talk about witches in The Lace Reader. I couldn't have read the two books at a more opportune time, I guess.
3.5/5
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