Drawn by family. Driven by fear. Haunted by fate. 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.