A Series Of (Un)Fortunate Reviews

The Fifth Petal is the third book by Brunonia Barry.  I read and reviewed her first book, The Lace Reader .  Her second novel was The Map of True Places , and I read that one, but apparently I did not review it for the blog.  All of Barry's novels are part of The Lace Reader series.  They all take place in Salem, Massachusetts, and the third one features characters from the first two novels as well as new characters. The setting in Salem is important to the story, and it couldn't be set any place else.  The rich history of a city still scarred by the infamous witch hysteria of 1692-'93 plays a distinctive, heavy role in the story itself.  And the history of the witch trials and their victims is as fascinating as the story. On Halloween a trio of teen boys harasses Rose, Salem's resident "banshee" and outcast woman, and when a god awful shrieking starts, the ring leader of the trio falls dead.  Thanks to his connections to an influential family ...

The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry is an engrossing story that sucks you right in to it and by the end of the story the reader finds out just how "unreliable" the narrator really is. The novel takes place in Salem, Massachusetts, the town of seventeenth century witch-hunt infamy. The town itself really acts as another character in the story because it is the nature of the town's history that influences the events and characters of the story. Ultimately this is the tale of the deadly destruction of a family by one man, who is an extremely dangerous and cunning alcoholic, abuser and psychopath. It is also the story of one young woman's journey toward mental and emotional healing. When her beloved great-aunt goes missing, Towner Whitney returns home after a self-imposed fifteen year exile. Towner comes from a family of lace readers--women who can read others' fortunes in the patterns of lace--and is herself a very gifted lace reader. Towner refuses to use her gifts o...