USA Today
Barry’s modern-day story of Towner Whitney, who has the psychic gift to read the future in lace patterns, is complex but darker in subject matter.... The novel’s gripping and shocking conclusion is a testament to Barry’s creativity.
New York Times
What is real in The Lace Reader? What is not? To her credit Ms. Barry makes this story blithe and creepy in equal measure.... And there is much suspense invested in where all the lacunas in Towner’s impressions will lead her...There are clues planted everywhere.
Joshilyn Jackson
Evocative, layered, smart, and astonishing, THE LACE READER is a fever dream of a novel that will haunt me for a long time to come. The Salem, Massachusetts that the Whitney women inhabit is a wild, dark place, and I loved every moment that I spent there.
Tom Jenks
Barry’s novel is that rare thing—a literary page-turner worthy for it’s story and for its art.
Diane Stern
The Lace Reader challenges the very notion of reality. A compelling, fast-action page turner. A terrific read!
Kristin Hannah
Lovely and captivating...The Lace Reader showcases Barry’s understanding of human nature. A splendid debut novel.
Marisa de los Santos
With THE LACE READER, Brunonia Barry plunges us through the looking glass and beyond to a creepy and fascinating world. Prepare to meet strange, brave, bruised, electrically alive women there. Prepare to be riveted by their story and to live under its spell long after you’ve reached its astonishing end.
The Olympian
Barry’s depictions of her characters’ altered states of consciousness are beautifully rendered. And “The Lace Reader” establishes Brunonia Barry as a force...
Salem Gazette
The Lace Reader is a page-turner, and the ending is almost as shocking as the film The Sixth Sense.
Katherine Turman
Past and present mysteries merge in a fast-moving narrative that builds through a numerous small dramas to a theatrical conclusion.
Chicago Tribune
A gorgeously written literary novel that’s a doozy of a thriller, capped with a jaw-dropping denouement that will leave even the most careful reader gasping.
Roxanne Price
Barry weaves a suspenseful tale of witchcraft and dark mystery…Barry’s depictions of time and place are marvelously descriptive.
Booklist
[For] fans of Dennis Lehane’s Shutter Island, Chris Bohjalian’s The Double Bind.
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
The Lace Reader unravels a magical, yet tragic family’s tale...Barry has cleverly and delightfully set us up. With one fell swoop, she cuts the last thread, and the characters she has so carefully created unravel to reveal secrets we had not even begun to guess.
Raleigh News & Observer
Barry has written a meditative, lyric novel that in its discursive storytelling style full of digressions and expository sections on interesting facts will appeal to people who enjoy savoring a book one section at a time.
Tulsa World
A ‘romance’ in the Nathaniel Hawthorne sense of the word a dark tale of sin and guilt that blends the mundane and the fantastic, with a glimmer of redemptive hope at its core that all the Gothic trappings cannot obscure.
San Antonio Express-News
Barry does a fantastic job of sketching out her characters. The Whitney women, one and all, are intriguingly real.
Christian Science Monitor
Surprise endings are tough to pull off—too often they aren’t a surprise to anyone but the main character. To Barry’s credit, she genuinely got me.
Minneapolis Star Tribune
The Lace Reader casts an enthralling spell...As The Lace Reader unspools, we are drawn into a whirling vortex of deceit. Barry untangles these confusing strands of mystery with an artful precision.
Denver Post
What makes Brunonia Barry’s compulsively readable debut even more interesting is the spice added by fillips both psychic and supernatural.
Dallas Morning News
Brunonia Barry has pulled off a major feat with her debut, The Lace Reader: It’s a gorgeously written literary novel that’s also a doozy of a thriller, capped with a jaw-dropping denouement that will leave even the most careful reader gasping.
Rocky Mountain News
Finely rendered moments make this a novel to savor—a story as textured as it is imaginative... a story that readers will find as lovely as a swatch of handmade lace.
Washington Post Book World
Gripping…a marvelously bizarre cast of characters (living and dead) in a uniquely colorful town.
Tampa Tribune
An engrossing modern-day twist on the classic Gothic novel….the story both astonishes and satisfies. In short, The Lace Reader is great entertainment.
New York magazine
Suspenseful and literary catnip-for-book-clubs...while it’s surprisingly gritty for having “lace” in the title, we’re calling this now as the beach read of ’08.
Time magazine
[A] richly imagined saga of passion, suspense, and magic.
People
A spine-tingler set in Salem...[with] an irresistible pull...The Lace Reader is tailor-made for a boisterous night at the book club.
People (People Pick)
A spine-tingler set in Salem...[with] an irresistible pull...The Lace Reader is tailor-made for a boisterous night at the book club.
New York Magazine
"Suspenseful and literary catnip-for-book-clubs...while it’s surprisingly gritty for having "lace" in the title, we’re calling this now as the beach read of ’08."
Time Magazine
"[A] richly imagined saga of passion, suspense, and magic."
People Magazine
"A spine-tingler set in Salem...[with] an irresistible pull...The Lace Reader is tailor-made for a boisterous night at the book club."
