Towner Whitney started out her story telling me she was a liar; that she was crazy. I believed her for a moment, and I was cautious in what I trusted in her words. But as I read, I fell into her trap, and completely forgot her warning. There were other people helping to tell her story, and I had no reason not to believe them, so I did. I fell for them all, and I was glad. They showed me a world full of magic and love and old-world women in a setting that is at once modern and archaic.
Towner’s return home (yes, my second book in a row where a character returns to her touristy hometown) to Salem, MA is fraught with anxiety. She has been gone 15 uneventful years, but returned during her recovery from major surgery in the hopes of helping to find her Great Aunt Eva, who has gone missing. To say she comes home reluctantly would be an understatement. Towner has a tragic history in this town, and never planned on returning. Once her aunt is found dead, she is pretty certain she shouldn’t have come.
The Whitney women are an odd, yet kind, assortment of characters. They are bound together by blood, and by purpose. In this town of witches, Lace Reading is a tradition that has been passed down for generations. Eva believes Towner has the gift to read, but Towner wants nothing to do with it. The Lace is usually read for the good things life holds, but it has shown a share of horror to the Whitney women. Towner’s mother May lives in the only house still open on Yellow Dog Island, with a group of women who form an old fashioned Circle to make lace. In the lingo of Salem, they are seen as a coven. In truth, they are a hapless band of women and young children who have fled to the island to escape abusive relationships. May, an agoraphobic, has become the leader in this movement, offering them safety, and, often a chance to move on and away. She knows all about their pain.
The chapters are set up a little bit like The Friday Night Knitting Club, with paragraphs from “The Lace Reader’s Guide” beginning most of them. I was really sad to hear that the whole concept of Lace Reading was completely made up by the author, who says it came to her in a dream.
I really enjoyed this book, despite some predictable plot setups and romantic storylines. There are merciless bad guys, and guys just too good to be true. There are cults and witches, and poor young women who just can’t seem to figure out which side to be on in this narrowly divided town.
When it came to the end, I realized I had not heeded Towner’s warning, and so I was stunned by the final twist. In my own defense, it did seem to come out of nowhere. I found myself rereading parts just to make sure what she said was actually possible. The twist has been compared to the Sixth Sense, which is pretty accurate. If you are going to read it – and I still recommend it – go into it forgetting this, or you will be so busy picking out unimportant details that you will miss the point of the lush and engaging story. Salem has always been an intriguing place to me, and the author does not disappoint in her attention to detail. Step aside vampires, these witches will charm you.
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