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The Lace Reader: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Brunonia Barry
Publisher: William Morrow
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $12.95
You Save: $12.00 (48%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  141 reviews
Sales Rank: 733
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.3
ISBN: 0061624764
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780061624766
ASIN: 0061624764
Publication Date: August 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: CHARITY SALE!! Brand new - excellent condition! 100% of the proceeds benefit literacy efforts of Books for America.
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Amazon.com Review
Amazon Best of the Month, August 2008: Brunonia Barry dreamt she saw a prophecy in a piece of lace, a vision so potent she spun it into a novel. The Lace Reader retains the strange magic of a vivid dream, though Barry's portrayal of modern-day Salem, Massachusetts--with its fascinating cast of eccentrics--is reportedly spot-on. Some of its stranger residents include generations of Whitney women, with a gift for seeing the future in the lace they make. Towner Whitney, back to Salem from self-imposed exile on the West Coast, has plans for recuperation that evaporate with her great-aunt Eva's mysterious drowning. Fighting fear from a traumatic adolescence she can barely remember, Towner digs in for answers. But questions compound with the disappearance of a young woman under the thrall of a local fire-and-brimstone preacher, whose history of violence against Whitney women makes the situation personal for Towner. Her role in cop John Rafferty's investigation sparks a tentative romance. And as they scramble to avert disaster, the past that had slipped through the gaps in Towner's memory explodes into the present with a violence that capsizes her concept of truth. Readers will look back at the story in a new light, picking out the clues in this complex, lovely piece of work. --Mari Malcolm
Product Description
Every gift has a price . . . Every piece of lace has a secret . . . 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. . . . Towner Whitney, the self-confessed unreliable narrator of The Lace Reader, hails from a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns in lace, and who have guarded a history of secrets going back generations, but the disappearance of two women brings Towner home to Salem and the truth about the death of her twin sister to light. The Lace Reader is a mesmerizing tale that spirals into a world of secrets, confused identities, lies, and half-truths in which the reader quickly finds it's nearly impossible to separate fact from fiction, but as Towner Whitney points out early on in the novel, "There are no accidents."
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| Customer Reviews: Read 136 more reviews...
Different! November 15, 2008
I didn't think I'd like this book, but got hooked from the beginning. I live in New England, and am very familiar with Salem, so I was happy to see it in the spotlight of this book. The sense of place truly played a role in the lives of the characters.
I did *not* see the twist coming in this story, and it will keep the book with me long since I've finished it as I will continue to review what happened.
All in all, I think this is a good book with interesting characters, including place as a character.
Good job!!
 3 Star Should Have Been 5 November 13, 2008
I read this book because it was my Book Club pick. I loved the first half of the book and thought it reminded me a little of "Prince of Tides". I really liked the characters and the setting but soon was completely confused. There were so many discrepancies and surprise endings. There could have been some hints along the way.
My Book Club felt the same way.
One big Question no one could answer was?
WHY DID TOWNER/SOPHYA REFER TO EVA AS HER "GREAT-AUNT"?????
WE UNDERSTOOD THAT EVA WAS G.G. WHITNEY'S SECOND WIFE AND MAY AND EMMA WERE HALF SISTERS, BUT EVA WOULD BE TOWNER/SOPHYA'S GRANDMOTHER IF SHE THOUGHT EMMA WAS HER MOTHER OR EVA WOULD BE HER STEP-GRANDMOTHER IF SHE THOUGHT MAY WAS HER MOTHER.
THIS MAY SEEM LIKE A SMALL THING, BUT IT IS AN EXAMPLE OF OTHER INCONSISTENCIES.
We think Brunonia Barry has a best seller in her, but not this one.
 Disappointed November 4, 2008
I'm sorry to say that after longing to read this book because of the title, I was disappointed when I read it. It seemed to me to just go on and on, never captured my interest.
 The Lace Reader November 2, 2008
A marvelous read. Well researched and written. Twists and turns that keep one going til the end.
Hope there are more books from this author.
 Possibly the most disappointing debut I've ever read. October 31, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
I was pretty excited to crack open this debut from new novelist Brunonia Barry, psyched about the creative concept behind the story as well as the Salem setting, but closed it feeling more disappointment and confusion than I can recall from any recent reading experience.
The very broken, damaged Towner Whitney (somehow also known as Sophya) has returned to Salem from years in California because her beloved great-aunt Eva has gone missing. That mystery is solved immediately - well, partially - upon Towner's return so it's not a focal point of the story, and the real mystery is Towner herself. The first would be why on earth the girl has two distinctly different names, but let's not belabor the point. No, the bigger mystery is what on earth is going on with this woman. From the flashes we're given it's clear that she's been hospitalized, most recently for a physical condition and in the more distant past, a murkier mental one. The story we're told is that she had a twin sister, Lyndley, from whom she was raised separately, who committed suicide years before. Their mother May lives like a hermit on one end of Yellow Dog Island, running a sort of underground railroad for domestic abuse victims, and May's sister Emma lives at the other end. It was Emma who raised Lyndley, having been given the child by her sister because she couldn't have any of her own. This turns out to be a tragic disaster, though, when Emma's lout of a husband, Cal, sexually abuses the girl. Worse, Cal is now a religious cult leader living nearby with his followers, and his tormenting of the Whitney family has never ended.
The Whitney women are Lace Readers, women with the gift to see prophecy through the patterns of lace. Supposedly, the author was inspired to write the novel by a dream she had about a vision read in lace, and it's an intriguing, incredibly creative idea. Amidst a beautiful, richly-illustrated setting, the story itself is dark with themes of insanity, sexual abuse and brutal domestic violence.
Sounds compelling, right? Well, it WOULD HAVE BEEN if not for the fact that at the end it COMPLETELY UNRAVELS! To my frustration I can't even say why, because it would be a spoiler. All I can say is that it goes off the deep end and not in a good way. It makes absolutely no sense whatsoever, and although she could have possibly found a way to bring it all together and at least attempt to explain away the utterly ridiculous turn the story took, she doesn't even bother. From reviews on Amazon it appears that some people liked it regardless (maybe they didn't actually finish it?), and others came to the same befuddled conclusion as I. All I did when I reached the end was scratch my head and think, "But how did......" "How could this have happened if she......." "She didn't explain what....." "Who was the person on the....." and finally, "THIS MAKES NO FREAKING SENSE!!!"
Hell, I'm not even one of those people who's a firm stickler for details, and I'll take style over substance if the style is stylish enough, so that's testament to just how ridiculous and confusing I found this. For me personally it qualifies as THE WORST ENDING EVER. Not the concept, which as I said could have been compelling if the author had bothered to really tie it together, answer all the glaring questions and numerous outright impossibilities, but she does not. I actually shook my head in disbelief when I got to the end and realized that she apparently had no intention of doing so. I'm not such an idiot that I need everything explained to me at the end, mind you, but when an author spends 400 or so pages weaving what turns out to be almost a complete fabrication....YEAH, I HAVE A FEW QUESTIONS!
How disappointing that a story with such wonderful potential ended up being almost a complete waste of time and money. Honestly, I was disgusted in a way I rarely am with books. I will never read anything by this author again.
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