The Lace Reader

By: Brunonia Barry

Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan

Length: 11 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's summary

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."

©2006 Brunonia Barry (P)2008 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic reviews

"Barry excels at capturing the feel of smalltown life, and balances action with close looks at the characters' inner worlds. Her pacing and use of different perspectives show tremendous skill and will keep readers captivated all the way through." ( Publishers Weekly)

Stunning and a bit disturbing

Beautifully written, this book definitely pulls you in. The characters were intruiging, the setting was beautifully brought to life, and I was totally gobsmacked at the end.

A nice meander through old-school New England

This is definitely a story requiring a certain suspension of expectations; it wanders at points, and is slow at points. That said, it also avoids the kind of formulaic structure that would make it seem more like a Lifetime movie, and because of that I ended up really liking it. The narration is very good, and the story is atmospheric and moody. The one thing that really compromised the performance for me is the acoustic guitar interludes, which seemed to drop in out of nowhere to jolt the listener out of the scene. Try to ignore them, since the story is still worth it.

Loved this story!!!!

Living an hour away from Salem, MA this audio story brought me to all my favorite spots while captivating me into its story. Highly recommend!

Not quite as good as I expected.

I heard an interview with the author on NPR and it sounded as if this might be a great listen. I found the structure somewhat contrived and I didn't quite enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I usually like this kind of novel and perhaps I should listen to it again. A lot of 'he said, 'I said, 'she said' narrative which does not do well when listening to a book.

Just ended up boring me to pieces!

I had hoped to be entertained by this book, but found it to be tedious, and gave up about half-way through. The plot and the characters were thin and uninteresting. Two thumbs down.

the lace reader

good book

B.O.R.I.N.G

Terribly boring, I don't understand how people like it. I thought the lace reading idea could be quiet creative but is not exploited at all.Not interesting twists, flat characters; if you need to be capture by a book in order to keep reading it, SKIP THIS ONE

Confusing

Incredibly confusing storyline. The names are all very similar with the past and presence narratives.

hard to follow

did not even finish ......downloading another book as I type ...wasted 19.95

Murky

I do not understand why people write like this. Here is the potential for a very good story, yet it comes off as a series of blurry snapshots. Characters emerge with high drama in the extreme, and come and go with little context or definition, and the chronology is difficult to follow. The lace motif is interesting but is not hardwired to the narrative.

However, there is occasionally enough detail to stay interested, and there is an excellent sense of place. The ambiance of the setting, the feeling of the town and its characters, so linked to the water, go a long way towards sustaining the story.