Book Review: The Five Petals by Brunonia Barry

Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge,from Crown Publishing, via NetGalley,  for review purposes on this blog. No other compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about it,  all opinions are my own.


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.

the five petals cover


Synopsis:

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?


Review:

this is the PERFECT book to read over the Thanksgiving holiday, as it has everything you get to deal with- family, drama, lies, backstabbing, history, generations old feuds, and ancestry 101! AND did I mentioned I hated to have to stop reading, and ran back to it every second I had? Yup, this is one of those books that once you stop, you can NOT put it down. Is it enchanted? No, but Barry's writing style sure is!

Barry brings her characters, landscapes and sublots to life so well, you feel like you are right THERE with the characters, and breathing the Massachusetts air! The Salem witch trials are still not completely understood to this day, but Barry did her research and developed a sub-angle to that period of time, that allows her to give the reader not one, but two murders, to try to solve. Were they done by the same person? What was the motive? Where is the missing Goddess? And then she gives you scenes that stop you cold and make you rethink every thought you had and send your thinking in a different direction, until the next one! For lovers of history, this is a must ready, for those looking for a great read, you've found 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 her latest book: The Fifth Petal. 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 Invitational Fellowship as well as the winner of New England Book Festival s award for Best Fiction. Her reviews and articles on writing have appeared in the London Times and the Washington Post, and the Huffington Post. Brunonia co-chairs the Salem Athenaeum s Writers Committee. She lives in Salem with her husband Gary Ward and their dog, Angel. Gary and Bru are the organizers of the Salem Literary Festival.

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