The Lace Reader

Detective and mystery fictionFictionSuspense fictionLiteratureDrowning victims

3.0

Open Library

About this book

The Lace Reader (2006) is a novel by Brunonia Barry. The novel is set in Salem, Massachusetts, the American town famous for the Salem witch trials. A crucial plot device is the Ipswich lace that the protagonist's family would make. The novel came to be well known for its unusual route to mainstream publishing. Originally self-published by the author it became a local success story, got rave reviews in many places including Publishers Weekly, and was eventually picked up by the US branch of HarperCollins in a multimillion-dollar deal.

Themes & subjects

Detective and mystery fictionFictionSuspense fictionLiteratureDrowning victimsMystery fiction

Characters & people

Setting

Salem (Mass.)SalemMassachusetts

About the author

Brunonia Barry

Brunonia Barry is the New York Times and international best selling author of The Lace Reader, The Map of True Places and The Fifth Petal, which was recently chosen #1 of Strand Magazine's Top 25 Books of 2017. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages. She was the first American author to win the International Women’s Fiction Festival’s Baccante Award and was a past recipient of Ragdale Artists’ Colony’s Strnad Fellowship as well as the winner of New England Book Festival’s award for Best Fiction and Amazon’s Best of the Month. Her reviews and articles on writing have appeared in The London Times and The Washington Post. Brunonia co-chairs the Salem Athenaeum’s Writers’ C…