The Sound of Glass by Karen White

A book review of The Sound of Glass by Karen White. 

The Sound of Glass opens with a prologue that takes place in 1955.  A woman named Edith is working on something up in her attic, when an explosion outside pulls her to a window.  She sees a plane exploding and crashing to the ground.  She hears a thud and finds a suitcase from the crash in her yard.  She brings it into her house, carefully locking the door. Knowing that her husband hates locked doors, she has plenty of bruises to remind her of what happens when her husband doesn’t like something, she hurriedly opens it.  She finds a letter, that begins, Beloved, ...

Next we move forward to 2014 and are introduced to Merrit.  Merritt has learned that upon the death of her husband, she has inherited his grandmother’s home in South Carolina.  With nothing holding her in Maine any longer, she heads to the home, thinking that she will sell it.

After meeting Merrit, we are introduced to Loralee.  Loralee is packing her car for a trip to South Carolina that her and her son, Owen are getting ready to take.

The story is told in alternating chapters from Merrit’s point of view and then a chapter focused on Loralee.  Both women are strong characters, though Loralee starts out strong, Merrit takes a while to realize her strength.

This is a charming, sad, heart warming, uplifting story.  It has a little bit of everything in it.  There is even a love story going on.  The underlying tension through the whole story is the abuse of women.  Several of the characters have been abused, but they all still have their strength even if takes them awhile to figure it out.  In contrast to these women, Loralee seems to have been raised in the perfect Southern family, everything she talks about usually begins with, “My mama always said…”

I loved it.

I received a review copy from Netgalley.  All opinions are my own.