Sunday, July 10, 2016

Review of UNDER THE HARROW

Paperback, 240 pages
Published June 14th, 2016 by Penguin Books
ISBN 0143108573

BLURB
As UNDER THE HARROW opens, Nora is on the train to visit her sister, as she has done a thousand times before—bottle of red in her purse, happy to soon be cooking with Rachel in her countryside home, a respite from Nora’s noisy London existence. Everything is normal until it isn’t. What Nora finds when she arrives at the house—Rachel, slain, her shirt soaked in blood—she can barely process. Unsure what to do with herself, she checks into the only hotel in the quiet town and begins to hunt for clues. An unsolved assault—a trauma from the sisters’ past that bound them together, and haunted Rachel through her adulthood—has shaken Nora’s faith in the police; she can’t trust them to find her sister’s killer. Her fear turns to obsession, and the more she digs the farther away she feels from her beloved sister. As she turns her suspicion toward every possible suspect, her behavior increasingly erratic and desperate, Nora is under the harrow: deeply distressed and in danger.

Beneath the mystery of UNDER THE HARROW is a heartbreakingly honest portrait of sisterhood’s contradictions and complexities: jealousy, rivalry, long-held grudges, devotion, unspoken understanding, and forgiveness. UNDER THE HARROW is a thrilling and heartbreaking novel that will stay with readers long after they discover it's surprising resolution.


REVIEW
I am not the type of reader who tries to guess what will happen next in a book I am just along for the ride, but this author changed me for the first time in my life I am trying to figure out whodunnit. Rachel decides to stay in Marlow determined to find out who killed her sister, therefore, you get to know the supporting characters. So as a reader you feel as if you are in this small quaint town along with her every step of the way.  

The author did a brilliant job writing this story. The prose flows smoothly, it has this unique way of pulling in the reader making it impossible to put down the book. In addition, I enjoyed the extensive creative detail the author used to describe even the smallest element. I have never read a book written in this manner before. The clues are undetectable so minute and part of the story no matter how hard you try “you’re never gonna get it”.

When I open the door, I think someone else is inside. I have a sense of pressure changing, a floorboard lowering. I wait on the steps. Listening, but I don’t hear another creak, or a door close.

“Thank you, Penguin, for allowing me to give a honest review”

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Flynn Berry is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers and has been awarded a Yaddo residency. Under The Harrow is her first novel.  



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