Review: The Sound of Glass by Karen White

Title: The Sound of Glass   

Author: Karen White    

Published: May 2015, NAL  

Format: Hardcover, 432 pages   

Source: Publisher  

The New York Times bestselling author of A Long Time Gone
now explores a Southern family’s buried history, which will change the
life of the woman who unearths it, secret by shattering secret.

It
has been two years since the death of Merritt Heyward’s husband, Cal,
when she receives unexpected news—Cal’s family home in Beaufort, South
Carolina, bequeathed by Cal’s reclusive grandmother, now belongs to
Merritt.

Charting the course of an uncertain life—and feeling
guilt from her husband’s tragic death—Merritt travels from her home in
Maine to Beaufort, where the secrets of Cal’s unspoken-of past reside
among the pluff mud and jasmine of the ancestral Heyward home on the
Bluff. This unknown legacy, now Merritt’s, will change and define her as
she navigates her new life—a new life complicated by the arrival of her
too young stepmother and ten-year-old half-brother.

Soon, in
this house of strangers, Merritt is forced into unraveling the Heyward
family past as she faces her own fears and finds the healing she needs
in the salt air of the Low Country.

My thoughts: This is the first book I’ve read by Karen White and all I can say now is, what took me so long to pick up this author’s work? I really enjoyed this one and will certainly be reading more of her books as soon as I can fit them in!

This is a multi-layered, multi-generational tale that sweeps you up and doesn’t let you go. The story is told from alternating viewpoints, that of Merritt and Loralee and, while mostly told in the present, it does occasionally jump back to the past, that of Edith’s perspective. What I loved most about the book is that the pace seemed just right – not too fast, but not too slow either – it just meandered along, slowly revealing all that needed to be revealed at just the right moments so that we gradually see the whole picture of what really happened. 

I loved each of the three main female characters for their own reasons. They all had unique qualities about them that make them stand out. While at first they might rub you the wrong way, they tend to grow on you and by the end of the book, you can’t help but feel for them and want all the best for each of them. I especially loved Loralee’s Journal of Truths – she had some pretty good nuggets of wisdom that she was writing down in that book, some on the light side and some a little heavier, but good food for thought nonetheless.

This is the type of book that seems to have it all – secrets that are revealed, a little mystery that needs to be figured out, a romance that develops, a look at domestic violence and it’s impact on everything, and relationships in general as well as relationships between step-parents and step-siblings. But even with all this, the book never seemed bogged down – it was still a delightful read and really shows us that glass isn’t always as fragile as we believe it to be. I cannot wait to read more of Karen White…if you’ve read her before, what should I pick up next?