The Sound of Glass by Karen White

Title: The Sound of Glass
Author: Karen White
Publisher: NAL
Published: May 12, 2015
Format: E-ARC
Pages: 428
Dates Read: April 26-May 03rd
Source: Received from the publisher via Netgalley
in exchange for an honest review
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My Rating: 4 Stars
Snippet That Stuck With Me:
"You are so much stronger and braver than you think you are....You are strong at the broken places Synopsis:
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

Melissa's Musings:

This book is filled with a lot of layers. The stories of each of the different characters all intertwine in their own unique way. The story is made up of equal  parts intrigue, mystery, love, family growth and forgiveness.

My favorite character was Merritt. She is very rough on the outside, and keeps to herself a lot. She moved to the South to start over, to get away from years of bad memories, to get a fresh start since the death of her husband. What she didn't bargain for was to end up living with her much younger stepmother and her ten year old half brother Owen.

The interactions between Merritt and Owen are very sweet, because even though there's such an age difference between them, they are a lot alike. Which makes sense, since they're siblings. As a reader you get to experience them open up and relax a lot throughout the book.

I like the softer side of Merritt toward the end of the novel. It makes her relationship with Gibbes all that more believable.

When I first read the inklings of the relationship between Gibbes (Merrit's husband's younger brother) I thought it was going to end up being ridiculously corny. Thankfully the progression of their relationship was natural. It was unforced, and it didn't feel like insta-love.

The writing is nicely paced for the most part. Though, it did feel overly simplified in some parts but there were other more descriptive sections that made up for it. I especially like the metaphors regarding the sea glass, particularly that the sound of the wind chimes in Merrit's inherited house are clapping to welcome her.

The sound of glass comes up as a descriptive theme throughout the novel and I feel that the comparisons are fitting to Merritts growth as a character, being that there are spots in the book where it's mentioned that just because it's glass doesn't mean that it's necessarily as fragile as you might think, and that it's weathered a lot of turbulence through years tumbling in the sea.

There's also mystery surrounding a plane crash and the interconnectedness of Merritt and Cal's families at an earlier time  which gave me chills.

I do have to put out one warning for people that may be sensitive to it. This book does deal with the topic of physical/emotional abuse.  It's not overly dramatic, but it is described in a few scenes, so beware of that if it's something that may be sensitive for you as a reader.

There are a lot of good hearted quotes from Merritt's stepmother Loralee. I'm rather ambivalent about these. At first I thought they were corny and silly, but then they seemed to get more mature as the book progressed, so they kind of grew on me.

Overall, this is a book that I would definitely recommend.