The Fifth Petal
Series: The Lace Reader #2
Kindle Edition, 448 pages
Expected publication: January 24th 2017 by Crown
Beloved author Brunonia Barry returns to the world of The Lace Reader with this spellbinding new thriller, a complex brew of suspense, seduction and murder.
When a teenage boy dies suspiciously on Halloween night, Salem's chief of police, John Rafferty, now married to gifted lace reader Towner Whitney, wonders if there is a connection between his death and Salem’s most notorious cold case, a triple homicide dubbed "The Goddess Murders," in which three young women, all descended from accused Salem witches, were slashed on Halloween night in 1989. He finds unexpected help in Callie Cahill, the daughter of one of the victims newly returned to town. Neither believes that the main suspect, Rose Whelan, respected local historian, is guilty of murder or witchcraft.
But exonerating Rose might mean crossing paths with a dangerous force. Were the women victims of an all-too-human vengeance, or was the devil raised in Salem that night? And if they cannot discover what truly happened, will evil rise again?
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first lines.)
First line—"Isn't it a little late to be praying? Tom Dayle thought but did not say. The child sat on a gurney just behind the privacy curtain in one of Salem Hospital's ER stalls, clutching what. to his lapsed Catholic eyes, appeared to be rosary beads."
I previously read The Lace Reader and I have to say I loved it. I was super excited to see that this author wrote a second book to continue the story. The subject of the Salem witch trials has always fascinated me and I love reading anything related to that topic and that time period. These stories take place in modern times but the people and events of the present are affected by the people and events of the past.
The discovery of a dead body may be related to another set of deaths. As the chief of police tries to get to the bottom of the current case, he goes back and digs through the cold case of the 1989 murders. The surviving little girl from that case has come back to town to find the loved one that she thought was dead.
The Fifth Petal is an intriguing story of murder and mystery, as well as being full of wonderful characters. The author does a great job of making the people in the story believable and interesting. I was totally absorbed in this story and hope that the author has more to come.
I received an Advance Reader Copy of this book and am voluntarily reviewing it.
About the author
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 will be released in January 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, a People Magazine Pick, and Amazon’s Best of the Month.
Her reviews and articles on writing have appeared in The London Times, The Washington Post, and The Huffington Post. She is a regular contributor to Writer Unboxed. Brunonia chairs the Salem Athenaeum’s Writers’ Committee and serves on Grub Street’s Development Committee. She is the Executive Director of the Salem Lit Fest, an annual event that brings people to Salem, MA from all over the world. She lives in Salem with her husband, Gary, and their dog, Angel.
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