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    The Lace Reader
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    The Lace Reader
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    The Lace Reader
    Ebook416 pages8 hours

    The Lace Reader

    By Brunonia Barry

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Drawn by family. Driven by fear. Haunted by fate.

    Would knowing the future be a gift or a burden? Or even a curse…?

    The Whitney women of Salem, Massachusetts are renowned for reading the future in the patterns of lace. But the future doesn’t always bring good news – as Towner Whitney knows all too well. When she was just fifteen her gift sent her whole world crashing to pieces. She predicted – and then witnessed – something so horrific that she vowed never to read lace again, and fled her home and family for good. Salem is a place of ghosts for Towner, and she swore she would never return.

    Yet family is a powerful tie and fifteen years later, Towner finds herself back in Salem. Her beloved great-aunt Eva has suddenly disappeared – and when you’ve lived a life like Eva’s, that could mean real trouble. But Salem is wreathed in sickly shadows and whispered half-memories. It’s fast becoming clear that the ghosts of Towner’s fractured past have not been brought fully into the light. And with them comes the threat of terrifying new disaster.

    A literary page-turner with depth, narrative power and a story that novels like ‘The Thirteenth Tale’ can only dream of, ‘The Lace Reader’ is a bewitching and tightly plotted read.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins UK
    Release dateApr 6, 2009
    ISBN9780007337583
    Author

    Brunonia Barry

    Born and raised in Massachusetts, Brunonia Barry studied literature and creative writing at Green Mountain College in Vermont and at the University of New Hampshire. After nearly a decade in Hollywood, Barry returned to Massachusetts, where, along with her husband, she founded an innovative company that creates award-winning word, visual and logic puzzles. Happily married, Barry lives with her husband and her twelve-year old Golden Retriever named Byzantium

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    Reviews for The Lace Reader

    4/5

    170 ratings178 reviews

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    • 5/5
      When I saw this book on our ARC pile at work, I almost didn’t pick it up. The title and cover didn’t really appeal to me. It didn’t seem like something I would normally read…then, I started hearing wonderful things about it on LT and decided to give it a try. And thank goodness for that.The Lace Reader takes place in 1996 and opens with Towner Whitney, who narrates most of the book, leaving California, where she has lived for the last 15 years, to return to her hometown of Salem, Massachusetts because her great-aunt Eva, who raised her, is missing. Towner establishes herself as an unreliable narrator from the first lines of the book, in which she says, “Never believe me. I lie all the time. I am a crazy woman…That last part is true,” which serves to make an already interesting book even more enthralling.As Towner joins the investigation into Eva’s disapperance, she reveals pieces of a personal and family history that are filled with abuse, heartbreak, and many, many skeletons in the proverbial closet. We learn early on that Towner had a twin sister, Lyndley, whom her mother gave away to Towner’s Aunt Emma when they were born, and who died tragically at the age of 17 after enduring years of abuse and the hands of her alcholic father, Towner’s uncle Cal Boynton, who is also the leader of the local cult. The death of her twin sister pushed Towner over the edge, and she was eventually hospitalized for psychiatric treatment, where the electric shock therapy she received caused her to lose many of her memories from her life BTH (before the hospital).As Towner reconstructs her memories, she explains that all of the Whitney women have the ability to read lace–to look beyond and through the patterns and see a person’s future–and that the last time she tried, 15 years ago, Lyndley “saw the same thing I saw in the pattern, and what we saw that night led her to the choices that eventually killed her.” As indicated by the book’s title, lace reading plays a major role in the lives of the characters and in the plot of the book, as Eva’s ability to read lace earned her the label of “witch” by the Calvinists (the members of Cal’s cult) and led to a longstanding dispute between them and Eva’s group of women friends and fellow lace makers, the Circle. The circumstances surrounding Lyndley’s death are a mystery through most of the book, and when Towner reveals the truth, it is shocking.As she further explains lace reading, Towner states thatSometimes, when you look back, you can point to a time when your world shifts and heads in another direction. In lace reading this is called the “still point.” Eva says it’s the point around which everything pivots and real patterns start to emerge.There seem to be several “still points” in Towner’s life, and as her story unfolds, it becomes increasingly enthralling and unputdownable. The ending–actually, the last 100 pages–is unexpected, emotionally jarring, and utterly unforgettable. It nearly brought me to tears, and that is a rare feat.Brunonia Barry knows how to tell a good story. Her use of changing points of view gives the characters added depth and provides extra details that make the story richer and more compelling. Her decision to present readers with Towner’s hospital journal of partially fictionalized writings about the events that led up to Lyndley’s death is particularly shrewd given that we never know how much to believe, and the momentum she builds in the final pages is simply incredible. This is an amazing story that ultimately illustrates the abilities our minds and hearts have to protect us from our own demons, and it will easily earn a place in my top five reads of the year. The Lace Reader left me breathless.
    • 4/5
      It’s about time that I add my voice to the chorus of praise this book has rightly received. The Lace Reader is the story of Towner Whitney, the self-proclaimed unreliable narrator of this tale, who returns to Salem, Massachusetts, after 15 years of self-imposed exile when her beloved Great-Aunt Eva goes missing. Barry has crafted a richly layered novel that deals with difficult subjects in an unusual and original way. The ghostly/witchy elements of the story are handled well and are believable within the context of the novel. I also loved the excerpts from Eva’s book The Lace Reader’s Guide, which added authenticity to this fascinating tale. In addition, Barry’s descriptions of Salem and her historical overview of the town have inspired me to plan a visit there some day. My only complaints about the book are that the romance was a tad predictable and the shift from the main narrator to a secondary one felt abrupt to me. Plus I wish I hadn’t been able to see the main twist coming—though it’s so well done, it’s hard to feel disappointed about this. This is definitely a book that merits a reread! If you enjoyed The Thirteenth Tale, then you will likely enjoy this one as well.
    • 4/5
      The story takes place in Salem, Massachusetts and centers around Towner Whitney, who has returned home due of her Great Aunt Eva's unexplained disappearance. Eva is the town's original Lace Reader. She makes lace and then reads the lace as a way of predicting the future. In addition to Eva, we have May, Towner's mother who lives on Yellow Dog Island. May lives with a group of women who have come to her in need and uses the island as a way to protect them. This includes Towner's Aunt Emma, who has been blinded by her husband and left with brain damage.There is also Ann, who is part of a different "circle" of women who practice love spells but her and her group are often mistaken for witches by the tourists in the area.Towner has issues of her own. She lives in the city, but has been battling her own demons in between bouts of mental illness and shock treatments. Her return home, and her "visions" concern the people around her because they know her history and what she has been through. She experiences gaps in memory, partly because of the treatment she has endured. She is also grieving over the suicide of her twin sister, Lindley which she has never quite recovered from.This story is rich with detail, but none of it seemed unnecessary or gratuitous. Sometimes when writing about characters that are part of the same family, there is a blurring of lines as to where one begins and another ends. I did not get that with this story. I felt that although many were indeed relatives, each character had its own identity and complexity. I wanted to know more about each of them and more importantly, I cared about what happened to them. As Towner tries to piece together what has happened to Eva, she comes to terms with much of what has plagued her and we see "hope".The Lace Reader is a whirlwind of thoughts and emotions. It's a mystery with a tad of historical fiction thrown in. I was completely absorbed by the story and although there is an expectation to suspend disbelief in a couple of places, I gladly did so without hesitation. I think this book would be a fantastic pick for book groups.
    • 5/5
      A fascinationg, complex narrator, compelling characters, engrossing plot hightlighted by lace reading instructions, and a surprise/twist ending will leave you unable to stop reading oonce you begin The Lace Reader.
    • 5/5
      Totally not what I was expecting. I thought this was going to be one of those slow family/friendship quasi-romance summer beach reads. While there is a romance element to the story, I found this to be more of a quick reading suspense story. Barry’s use of an unreliable narrator, shifting reality/dream sequences, Gothic atmosphere, an eccentric family and some interesting modern day parallels to Salem’s witch trials history made this a near perfect read for me. I love how Barry uses lace as the medium for the mind readers/fortune tellers of this story, imbuing the lace with a spiritual connection, kind of like Ojibwe dreamcatchers, meant to filter out bad dreams. The addition of the Calvinists, a religious group that admonishes the modern ‘witches’ of Salem and Towner’s family connection to Cal, the leader of the religious group, is perfect tinder for fueling the story. If it hadn’t been for what I felt was a rather sub-par ending after such a great suspense-building climax, this would have been a 5-star read for me. Even so, I still found this one to be an excellent mystery/suspense read and a stunning debut novel. Brunonia Barry has now been added to my “must read” authors list. As a word of warning, the story does contain some scenes of domestic violence that some readers may want to avoid.
    • 4/5
      I LOVED this book. I tend to like stories with a bit of magic, and The Lace Reader definitely delivered. The characters were well-drawn and well-rounded. They were believable and engaging, even though they were definitely flawed.My only complaints were somewhat minor. First, there was a pretty abrupt shift in point-of-view at chapter 14 that I thought could've been transitioned into a little bit more smoothly by doing it where the book went from Part Two to Part Three instead of just at a chapter break. I also thought the third quarter or so of the story was a little less tightly knit than the rest, but no worries...Barry pulled it together for a nice twist and a good ending.I have already recommended the book to friends and passed my ARC copy around. Definitely give it a try if you like your fiction with a touch of mystery and a little magic.
    • 5/5
      From the moment I read the first paragraph (My name is TOWNER WHITNEY. No, that's not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time.), I knew that I was in for a different sort of read. In spite of her admonition, I fell for some of her stories and was surprised by parts of the ending. This book is set in Salem, Massachusetts. Salem, as we all know, gained its reputation as a "witch town" because of the 1692 trials. Those who were convicted at that time (including my 8th great grand-aunt) were not, of course, witches, but the town now has a substantial population of those practicing Wicca. A cult group called the "Calvinists" (not to be confused with those who following the teachings of John Calvin) who follow Cal Boynton are exorcising the demons in the witches (and others they believe are witches) in town. They figure prominently in the narrative. There is occasional profanity in the book, but it is mild compared to many contemporary works of literature. As a Christian, I wish that the author had chosen another name for her cult group so as not to confuse them with true Calvinists who follow the teachings of John Calvin. I also have issues with the portrayal of Wiccan teachings as acceptable.This is a well-written and captivating read.
    • 3/5
      This novel suffered a little from high expectations for me. I was expecting an amazing, shocking ending, but I was able to see it coming less than halfway through the book. The POV shifts between first person present tense, when Towner is narrating, to third person past tense, when we see things from the cop's point of view and when we get some different "documents." I thought Towner's voice was almost annoying; for me, the book got better and more interesting when she wasn't talking, although I can see why the author needed her POV. Overall, it was pretty good. I'd recommend it, but not too highly.
    • 3/5
      I wanted very much to like this book, there were several elements that drew me in, salem and witches theme, the brutal family dynamics, supernatural possibilities and then it took off in too many directions. I enjoyed the excerpts from the "Lace Readers Guide" heading each chapter as well as the description and atmosphere of Salem. Even though the book opens with Eva's death she was the character I was most drawn to, I would have loved to have had a reading from her in her tea room. The twisted family dynamics were so realistically portrayed I was relieved by the final action taken by May.To the less enjoyable parts, the unreliable narrator and jumps from the present to Towner's memories was distracting. I found myself needing to re-listen to sections to figure out which time period I was in which kept me from being as engrossed in this stroy as I wanted to be.
    • 2/5
      I was completely drawn in by this tale. Having been to Salem, I could envision myself moving through the world Barry successfully recreates. I've always loved a good mystery, and the author delivers. I also think she did an admirable job of depicting the effects of abuse on a family. However, I knew a twist ending was coming and was not impressed by it. In fact, I thought Barry did a poor job of explaining how this ending could be. I am still puzzling over details in the book that don't make sense in light of the resolution. I did speed through the book, which is a sign of a well-crafted narrative.
    • 3/5
      Towner tells us at the beginning that she is crazy and that she is a liar. I'm fairly certain of the first, not so sure of the second. Truly a mystery, as I'm not sure we have any answers at the end.
    • 4/5
      I'd say, overall, The Lace Reader was a solidly good novel. There were some absolutely gorgeous moments in it, certainly, though I found it easy to get bogged down in all the narration. The one gripe I have is that perhaps the ending was far, far too neat for the slogging I had to do to get there - it was surprisingly unsatisfactory, for me, to have everything go crystal clear by the end. Perhaps I would have preferred muddier waters? Or a more drawn-out denouement? Nonetheless, I did enjoy the novel and found it very original - I will have to check out more books by this author in the future, I think!
    • 1/5
      I didn't care for this book. Disjointed story and the characters did not speak to me.
    • 1/5
      I found this book a mediocre read. I was more captivated by the little asides on tatting lace than I was by the story itself. I did finish it though, and unfortunately the ending was one that has been done several times before, and in much better fashion.
    • 3/5
      Salem, Massachusetts - much ado about witches and the magic arts, touristy. But the psychics, readers, fortune-tellers and witches are the good guys in this story. The Calvinists are the bad guys - Calvinists, the followers of local guy, Calvin, not Calvinists, the Protestants. Still. The author’s sense of place was spectacular; the town, the water and islands, the rugged coast. The history and tidbits about lace-making were interesting. And so were parts of the story line, a mystery with the main character a woman with a mental illness. But still.I just didn’t like it.
    • 5/5
      "My name is Towner Whitney. No, that's not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time." Thus Brunonia Barry warns her reader that the likeable narrator of 'The Lace Reader' is not to be trusted. Nothing will be as it seems at first -or will it? This is a magical, compelling novel. The basic plot is simple enough: a young woman returns to her hometown after the disappearance and probable death of the family matriarch. We see much of the story through her eyes, yet she has from the onset warned us that she is an unreliable narrator. Even as the judicious reader questions much of what she reads, interest in the eccentric Whitney family and their histories becomes compelling. Giving away details of the story line would be unfair to both reader and author. So to do a quick `junior high book report' approach - the characters are life-like and well-drawn; the plot is well-developed but twisting (careful reading is demanded of the reader); the author's style flows smoothly, and the ending is a roller coaster ride. The paradox of a really good book for me is that I want to race through it - the `I can't put it down' feeling. I have to know what's happening next. While at the same time I am saddened at the thought of finishing the novel and leaving the magic world of the book. This was true of The Lace Reader. It's difficult to put down and the return to the real world comes with a thud!
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this novel, although after all the hype I'd heard, I think I was expecting just a tad bit more -- more mystery, more suspense, more family secrets, more resolution with the ending. I was left wanting more, and I felt that this book would yield well to a sequel or prequel. And it seems that there are rumors flying that that may be the case, and if that's so, I anxiously await one or the other. I read the audiobook version & I think perhaps it was harder to discern one part from another near the ending. With that said, I'd enjoy reading this again in book form, and I think I will suggest this for a future book group read, as it definitely would prompt some good discussion.
    • 5/5
      I no longer own this book but must add it back to this physical catalog of my library to satisfy those in charge of the Early Reviewer Program.Since I do not have a copy of the book nor access to my original review, I do not remember specifics. However I do remember that I really enjoyed the setting, the plot and the character of Towner Whitney. That the book did not have the feel of a debut book. That I would definitely read other books by this author.
    • 2/5
      This story failed to engage me. The book is very well written but after reading about 75 pages of it and forcing myself to pay attention to the unfolding events, it didn't any thing for me.A book is suppose to take my mind away and let me float inside the book, becoming a part of the story. This one didn't do it . I think it is the way the story is tell and not the subject of the story, which is very good. Oh well, I can't like them all.
    • 4/5
      Engrossing book! My best advice to anyone planning to read this book is to try very hard not to hear or read anything about it first. Since there is no way for me to review it without taking the chance that I'll spoil something for someone, I'll say only this: make sure you leave yourself time to re-read it as soon as you're finished. Trust me; you'll want to.
    • 5/5
      Charming and unusual, but also dark and full of suspense, The Lace Reader is beautifully written. The women of modern-day Salem, Mass. can read the future in lace. With a complex story, original characters and a magical slant, you will be hooked. Highly recommended - I loved it!
    • 4/5
      This story is told by Towner Whitney, who has returned to her hometown of Salem, Massachusetts, after being gone for more than a decade. Towner has returned home after her aunt turns up missing. Towner comes from an interesting family, with the women in the family having the ability to "read" lace as other fortune tellers would read tarot cards or palms. Towner had vowed never to read lace again after the death of her sister, but that vow is tested when her aunt turns up dead. Salem, with it's colorful history, is a great setting for this story, which includes a group of modern day witches as well as a group of religious zealots. In addition to witchcraft and religion, the book contains many other themes including mental illness, violence against women and family drama. Salem is so well described in the book that I could easily picture myself there. The book started off a little slowly, but then picked up nicely. Overall, I found this a quick and enjoyable read.
    • 5/5
      This was a compelling story. Salem and the characters all came alive for me, and I found that every twist of the plot felt right, like an aha! moment. Towner and Lyndley, May and Rafferty, and even the witches and the Calvinists behaved in the way I believe their not fictional counterparts would behave. I loved this book, and hope to see more works by this author.
    • 3/5
      I think the idea of this book is much better than the actual follow-through. Towner Whitney, a self-proclaimed liar, narrates a story about returning to her roots in Salem after the death of a beloved family member. Towner shares disturbing stories from her childhood as well as pieces of information from the present day. The plot progresses steadily until the last 30 pages or so. At that point, it seems the author was on a deadline and threw together what she believed to be a plausible ending. Many loose ends are left unravelling, and Towner seems more unreliable than before. Overall, not a bad read until the final chapters.
    • 3/5
      This was a decent read. Granted, it was on my phone and I read it mostly when my husband wouldn't let me leave the light on to read in bed...There are some seriously heavy issues here, you can dive as deep as it suits you with them. There are a few bumpy spots, but the end is pretty interesting.
    • 5/5
      Unique, hard to describe and one of the best I've read. Truly wonderful story -- inventive, creative, spelling-binding and oh so well-written.
    • 5/5
      “My name is Towner Whitney. No, that’s not exactly true. My real first name is Sophya. Never believe me. I lie all the time.I am a crazy woman… That last part is true.” Even with that opening, I believed Towner, until The Sixth Sense ending, that I totally wasn’t expecting, but should have been. Generations of Whitney women in Salem, Massachusetts have been able to read the future in handmade Ipswich lace. Towner’s grandmother is so good at it that she offers readings in her tea room. But Towner gave up lace reading when she turned 17 and her twin sister died. At least, that’s what we’re told. Sisters, abuse, families, the sea, lies and truth, religion, faith, a cult, self- reliance, forgiveness, all are in this book. An amazing novel, makes me want to go visit the actual Salem even more.
    • 5/5
      Absolutely loved this book - wonderful story - great plot twists - magical! Can't wait to see the author at book group expo!
    • 3/5
      I found this story a little convoluted...so many characters with uncertain motivations; I kept getting them confused, especially the women. I just felt the characters were not developed enough to understand why they behaved and thought the way they did. One subplot would begin and then just sort of drop with no resolution. And the twist in the end did not really resolve things satisfactorily, sort of rushed to end the story. However, after all of this complaining, I did finish the book, so there you go...
    • 4/5
      A good read!