This is a very hard book to put down once you start reading and I liked it far better than Barry’s first book,
The Lace Reader. Perhaps because for me the magical realism within
The Map of True Places carried a bit more realism than fantasy. Zee Finch, with her funny name
…more and motherless childhood kept my interest at speed as she searched to find her own way through her past, the present and finally centering on what she wanted to aim for in the future.
The complex characters, the atmospheric foray into Salem’s historical past and Zee's father's developing struggle with the onslaught of Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s all added to the complexities of life that kept shining throughout this novel. (less)