Critics' Opinion:
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Published Aug 2008
400 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
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."
"Starred Review. Her pacing and use of different perspectives show tremendous skill and will keep readers captivated all the way through." - Publishers Weekly.
"Starred Review. In this, [Barry's] first original adult novel, she combines her focus on the history of this particular community, including its witchcraft trials, religious cults, and quotidian seaport life, with her study of a fractured family seeking truth to bring us a most unusual and bewitching novel. Highly recommended." - Library Journal.
"Unusual and otherworldly, this is a blizzard of a story which surprisingly manages to pull together its historical, supernatural and psychiatric elements." - Kirkus Reviews.
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Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo by Martha Everson
Brunonia Barry is the New York Times and international best selling author of The Lace Reader and The Map of True Places. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She was the first American author to win the International Women's Fiction Festival's Baccante Award and was a past recipient of Ragdale Artists' Colony's Strnad Fellowship as well as the winner of New England Book Festival's award for Best Fiction.
Born and raised in Massachusetts, Brunonia studied literature and creative writing at Green Mountain College in Vermont and at the University of New Hampshire, spending a year in Dublin where she studied James Joyce's Ulysses. After college, she worked in public relations for several theatrical productions in Chicago, including ...
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