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Loading... Lace Reader, The: A Novelby Brunonia Barry
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. 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. ( )I learned something about lace reading, and I liked the characters in this novel. It jumps around a little too much, and assumes the reader has some information that he/she doesn't, but it was still a good read with a fairly satisfying conclusion. Okay - so not the most satisfying ending. And there was even an unexpected twist but it felt a bit like the author got to a certain point in the story and had to come up with something to tie all the loose ends together. In other words, the twist and subsequent ending seemed contrived and a bit of a cop-out. There were also still several loose ends that were not tied up - a bit frustrating - such as the reason why the main character chose to go by the name Towner?? Huh - did I miss something? Not bad but certainly not one of the better things I've read recently. Disappointing! Towner Whitney comes from an established Salem family - the men were traders and merchants and pirates. And the women? Psychics and readers - especially lace readers. Towner comes back to Salem after the disappearance of her great-aunt, Eva, who gave lace readings to locals and tourists alike in her tea room. Towner's mother, May, always an eccentric, takes in abused women and children and teaches them to make lace. But Towner herself has been avoiding lace since her twin sister committed suicide as a teen after a lace reading. The book is itself a piece of finely crafted lace - read it patiently and all of its secrets will appear in time. Keep in mind that Towner's first paragraph includes the line "Never believe me. I lie all the time." Bit by bit, the details behind Towner's past materialize, knitting a web of overlapping truths and lies, light and darkness, as she herself comes to terms with what has happened to her. Haunting and beautiful. Reviewed by Junior Cain I only gave this 4 stars because at times I got confused during the story, but otherwise this was a great read. Even though I don't believe in fortune telling or witches or lace reading, I found the storyline very fascinating. As someone who used to work with victims of abuse, the author did a great job portraying their emotions and thoughts. The last 100 pages of the book got extremely intense and I could not put it down until the end. I was grateful that the author left the story with a hopeful ending because by the end, I needed it. I look forward to reading Barry's next novel! Thanks to www.heylady.net for sending me this book in a giveaway and to my bookclub gals for reading it with me! Can't wait for the discussion! no reviews | add a review
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(retrieved from Amazon Tue, 05 Jan 2010 11:47:57 -0500)
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