Wonderful story! Looking forward to reading more by this author!

First off, my thanks to NetGalley for an advance reading copy of The Fifth Petal. I remember reading The Lace Reader many years ago and wanted to give this new novel by Ms. Barry a try.

In 1989, on Halloween night in Salem, Massachusetts, three young women were brutally murdered while trying to honor their ancestors who were hanged in the Salem Witch Trials. The women were known as the goddesses and carried a dark secret. The child of one of the women, Callie survived, along with the goddesses's mentor and local historian, Rose.

The murders remained unsolved and the case cold, until another suspicious death on Halloween night, in the town of Salem, happens some thirty years later. Enter John Rafferty, the police chief, who is now married to Towner, a gifted lace reader. Callie, now a grown woman and a music healer, returns to Salem to help uncover the truth.

I enjoyed the parts about Salem and the witch trials. From a historical perspective, I found there was a lot to gain from this book. I felt there were many holes in the plot of the story though. I found myself backtracking a few pages too many times to pick up the current story thread. That is never a good thing. The characters didn't make me want to care about them. For example, Callie and her love affair were flat and unemotional, sparking no romantic engagement from me.

If you're a fan of Salem, or like witches and mystery, then I think you will find a lot to like in The Fifth Petal. I want to be fully invested with the characters in the books I read, and even though I learned about a piece of history, I just didn't get there with the rest of the story.

Although I received a copy of this eb00k from the publisher via netgalley, all opinions are my own.

This book took me awhile to get through, but it was totally worth it. Overall I thought this was amazing. I didn't realize until two minutes after reading this book that it is the second in a series. As you may have noticed in my other reviews, one of my pet peeves is when a book in a series cannot stand alone. This one did an amazing job standing alone. I might have to read the first book, just to see what this one's foundation looks like.

The story-line moved at a fair pace at first but gets faster as you go. The last third of the book went by SO quickly for me. I literally couldn't put it down.

The character development in this book was great for me. I could see them grow and evolve as their circumstances changed.

I loved the mystery in this book. Needing to know what happened to the goddesses was something that kept me reading. There are other smaller stories within that were an added bonus. This book left me satisfied with the way it ended. It wasn't so far left that you didn't believe it, but it wasn't so easy to guess that I knew who the killer was. Just a great mystery with so much more added in.

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.

A teenage boy named Billy Barnes dies on Halloween night; everyone knows that he was trouble, and no one is too surprised to see him come to a bad end. But police chief John Rafferty has a job to do, and he sets out to discover who the killer is. The setting is Salem, Massachusetts, the location of the Salem Witch Trials centuries ago and now the Mecca of Wiccans and others that practice witchcraft of various types, not to mention throngs of tourists that show up every autumn. Chief Rafferty wonders what the connection is between this murder and those of 25 years earlier, dubbed “The Goddess Murders”.

Thanks go to Net Galley and Crown for the DRC, which I received free in exchange for an honest review. This book will be available to the public January 24, 2017.

Barry is an experienced novelist, but her work is new to me. This title can be read as a stand-alone novel, but there’s a tremendous amount of detail here. Perhaps having read The Lace Reader, an earlier novel that other reviewers tell us has some of the same characters that are present here, would make this book less complicated and easier to sort through; then again, if Barry had chosen fewer secondary threads to follow, the reader could relax more and enjoy the book anyway. More on that in a minute.

Rose Whelan is a Salem native, has shouldered the “unofficial blame” for the Goddess Murders; she maintains that a banshee took up residence in her body and left her with no choice. Rose has gone from the psych ward, to homelessness, and back again; Rafferty and his wife Towner have offered her a room indoors, but she won’t leave the tree outside their home for long at a time, lest bad things happen. She has bad memories, and they give her unquiet dreams:

“On that horrible night, after it happened, after the shrieking stopped, the world had quieted and then disappeared. Rose had found herself staring into an eternal emptiness that stretched in every direction and went on forever. When the keening began, Rose had believed that the sound was coming from her own lips. Then she’d seen the tree limbs and branches start to move with the breath of the sound itself, their last leaves burning in the black sky like crackling paper. Then the trees had begun to speak. Come away now, the trees had said. Come away.”

The imagery here is amazing, as you can see; this aspect is the story’s greatest strength.

Our protagonist is Callie, who’s new in town. Rose had been her surrogate mother after her mother, one of the Goddesses, died. She had lost contact with her and is stunned to find her in such bad shape. And here, Brunonia does a fine job of highlighting the challenges of helping the homeless, not to mention the stereotypes that follow them. There’s a lot of Celtic lore that I also really like reading about.

The parts that disturb me are those throughout the book that reinforce the stereotype of women as being constantly in competition with one another, unable to get along and help each other.

However, the main thing that gets in the way of this being a really great read is the vast amount of detail about way too many things. At the 60 percent mark, my notes indicate that I wish the author would decide what, other than the primary plot line of the whodunit, she wants to feature. We have witches past; witches of the present; mean nuns; and way more about the healing properties of quartz bowls than I ever want to hear about. At this point in the book I am ready to throw in the towel and call it a 2 star read; I felt as if the mystery had degenerated into a New Age infomercial. I note that I can scarcely recall who’s dead, and who’s accused. But it’s a DRC and I have an obligation, so I forge on.

And that diagram! The diagram of a five-petal flower is created, changed and discussed in such infinite, numbing detail that my eyes are half-crossed by the time we make our way to the climax. Once we’re there, though, the story becomes more cohesive and I like the way she resolves it.

Those that have read Barry’s other books and liked them will enjoy this one; likewise those that are drawn to various aspects of modern spiritual healing and Wiccan practices will also be pleased. For myself, I would enjoy her work more if she didn’t try to jam such an extensive collection of minutiae into a single novel.

Although I haven't read The Lace Reader, I had absolutely no problem getting into this book and will definitely make sure I read The Lace Reader now! This book interested me because I have always been fascinated by the Salem Witch Trials and the history of it all. The Fifth Petal is a story that relates the Witch Trials, modern day Salem and a triple homicide that occurred in 1989 dubbed "The Goddess Murders". The two survivors from that triple homicide are brought back together through a new death that is investigated by the current police chief when he opens up the 1989 case and all the answers are revealed.

I got so engrossed in this book that it was like a history lesson, mystery and love story all in one.

I received an advanced eARC from the publisher through NetGalley.

This is a good book, interesting just not my kind of story. I did like the characters and feel people who enjoy magic and witches will enjoy this.

The Fifth Petal by Brunonia Barry

Review by Sandy Penny, SweetMysteryBooks **** four stars

Myth and legend permeated the book, and delivered an unusual story that was pretty compelling. The book is quite long, but the characters were fleshed out, some quirky, some eerie, some evil, and the potential for any of them to switch sides at any moment. When a traumatized little girl grows up and goes back to the site of her trauma, she finds her aunt, whom she was told had died, is still alive. Her aunt had also been traumatized by the same event, and it left her either crazy or aware of dark forces that torment her. When an old investigation of the event is reopened, it may open the gates of darkness once again. Fear has the townspeople up in arms, demanding justice. But they don't really know what justice is in this paranormal mystery/thriller that will keep you awake at night. I love the involvement of the trees in the story. Almost Druidic.