Set in the infamous Salem, The Lace Reader concerns an admittedly insane protagonist and her return to her childhood home.
Amidst a tale of death, magic, lies and, for some reason, lace, she tells the reader about her past and why she’s been damaged so badly.
Although quite a weak and scattered tale, there is some resolution at the end of the story and it’s possible that they live ‘happily ever after’, at least comparably speaking.
BUT…
Then we get the mother of all retcons. As twists go, it’s not too bad but it’s terrible for story continuality. It invalidates the majority of what has come before and leaves me wondering what, if anything, I can believe in this book. This is undoubtedly the point but I prefer my twists to give me an insight or alternate viewpoint on what has passed, not to leave me adrift in ignorance (though that is seemingly my natural state).
Salem itself is described rather thoroughly in the book and comes across as a nice enough place, though seemingly quite kitschy and exploitive of it’s tragic past.
Apparently this is now to be spun out to both a movie and two other books. I may well go to see the former as it would be interesting to see how they deal with the non-liner format of the book, but I don’t think I’ll be reading any more of the books.
Rating: 
