I won this book at a Quiz night. It’s an uncorrected proof so I have no idea where it came from or who donated it. It has been sitting on my ‘To Be Read’ shelve for quite a while, but I finally decided to give it a go.

I liked it.

Here is the stuff on the back …

A cross between The Memory-Keeper’s Daughter and The Sixth Sense, this mesmerising first novel takes the reader into a world of secrets, confused identities, lies and half-truths, culminating in an extraordinary twist.

‘My name is Towner Whitney. No, that’s not exactly true. Me real first name is Sophya. Never believe me, I lie all of the time’.

Towner Whitney comes from a family of Salem women who can read the future in the patterns in lace, and who have a guarded history of secrets going back for generations. Exiled in California, she receives a phone call telling her that her beloved Great Aunt Eva has disappeared and Towner must return to her home for an absence of 17 years …

A literary page-turner with depth, narrative power and a story that novels like The Thirteenth Tale can only dream of, The Lace Reader is bewitching and tightly plotted read.

The characters in this novel are beautifully written – crazy and damaged, but very real. The plot is intricate – like a piece of lace – with Towner as the still point at the centre.

This novel has a bit of everything; romance, mystery, crime and is an ambitious (and successful) first novel. I look forward to reading subsequent novels by Ms Barry.

This book reminds me of Kate Akinson’s Behind the Scenes at the Museum same kind of family mystery – that feeling that everyone else knows something.

Here are some links

http://www.lacereader.com/

If you want to buy the book …