The Lace Reader

[TealMermaid]

Over the summer, I read "The Lace Reader". It was an excellent book. I highly recommend it. Has anyone here read it? I posted about it on the Psychic thread, but wanted to post it here as well.

The Lace Reader
Reviewed by Tami Jo Nix - The Madera Tribune


"The Lace Reader," a new novel by Brunonia Barry, chronicles the lives of the Whitney family, a talented group of clairvoyants who can tell the future. Instead of tea leaves or Tarot cards, these women can tell a person's past, present and future through the loops and swirls of handmade lace.

Set in modern day Salem, Mass., the site of the notorious witch trials of the 1600s, part of the Whitney family lives on a small island in Salem's port to the Atlantic Ocean. On Yellow Dog Island there is more going on than meets the eye.

The primary voice of the narrative is that of Sophyia Whitney who goes by the name "Towner," because she can't stand the sound of her own name. Half of a set of twins, 38-year-old Towner has had severe emotional trauma that began in her teenage years. At age 17, she fled her island home for the California coast, trying to put as much distance between her and her problems as possible.

When her favorite Aunt Eva, a local lace reader and operator of a tea room, goes missing, Towner returns to the scene of her childhood and must face all the demons that entails.

She is forced to remember parts of her life that she thought were forever gone through treatment with psychotropic drugs and electric-shock therapy.

When she gets home, she finds that her mother, May Whitney, has turned New England lace making into a cottage industry using it as therapy to help victims of domestic abuse and their children escape their abusive husbands. Serving as a modern day "Underground Railroad," the women are able to flee to other parts of the country or Canada to make a new life free of the oppressive and abusive treatment of their husbands.

There are many twists and turns in the story that includes flashbacks to Towner's childhood, teenage years and life on Yellow Dog Island. It is a joyful ride and those in the boat won't regret it.