The Lace Reader

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.

Would knowing the future be a gift or a burden? Or even a curse!?

The Whitney women of Salem, Massachusetts are renowned for reading the future in the patterns of lace. But the future doesn't always bring good news - as Towner Whitney knows all too well.

When she was just fifteen her gift sent her whole world crashing to pieces. She predicted - and then witnessed - something so horrific that she vowed never to read lace again, and fled her home and family for good.

Salem is a place of ghosts for Towner, and she swore she would never return. Yet family is a powerful tie.

So it is that fifteen years later, Towner finds herself back in Salem. Her beloved Great Aunt Eva has suddenly disappeared - and when you've lived a life like Eva's, that could mean real trouble.

But Salem is wreathed in sickly shadows and whispered half-memories. It's fast becoming clear that the ghosts of Towner's fractured past have not been brought fully into the light.

And with them comes the threat of terrifying new disaster. 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 a bewitching and tightly plotted read.