The Lace Reader by Bruonia Barry

The initial draw of this book, for me, was that it takes place in locations I'm personally familiar with - San Diego, CA and Boston/Salem, MA. It's always nice to already have a sense of location when reading a novel; it allows you to focus on the characters. And, focusing on the characters of The Lace Reader is key because it gets confusing since they're all pretty complex.

Lace reading is an old family ability performed in Eva Whitney's tearoom right up until her mysterious death. The future is seen and interpreted through the patterns in individual pieces of lace. All the women in the family have the skill, but only Eva actively reads. The rest of the women struggle with their own demons, internally and externally, too violently to focus on reading the lace for others.

About halfway into the story of the troubled Whitney family dealing with the sudden death of their matriarch, you get the feeling that this novel is going to end with some psychological twist. This inkling greatly diminishes the shock value I'm sure the author meant to have at the book's climax. You don't know what's coming, but you see something unexpected on the horizon. I also cared more about the characters mid-story than at the novel's conclusion. I liked the unsolved pieces to their personalities and would have rather been left guessing than had everything wrapped up for me by the author.

The narrative voice also shifts periodically between Towner Whitney - the most troubled female of the family - and the detective working Eva's case. The purpose of this narrative switch eludes me. All the key information for the plot is really revealed through Towner's own voice. All you get access to through Rafferty, the detective, is old police files that involve members of the Whitney family. Even those don't give you a full explanation as to why the family is so troubled.

Simply put, I liked the book. The plot was interesting enough although I do feel like so much was packed in to the story that prime events and details lost their luster. I also feel like use of the big psychological twist in a story has been overdone by now and done better elsewhere. Go watch Fight Club or read My Sweet Audrina by VC Andrews if you want your characters truly dirty and royally messed up.