Under the Harrow

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What to expect

'It's like Broadchurch written by Elena Ferrante. I've been telling all my friends to read it - the highest compliment' Claire Messud

When Nora takes the train from London to visit her sister in the countryside, she expects to find her waiting at the station, or at home cooking dinner. But when she walks into Rachel's familiar house, what she finds is entirely different: her sister has been the victim of a brutal murder.
Stunned and adrift, Nora finds she can't return to her former life. An unsolved assault in the past has shaken her faith in the police, and she can't trust them to find her sister's killer. Haunted by the murder and the secrets that surround it, Nora is under the harrow: distressed and in danger. As Nora's fear turns to obsession, she becomes as unrecognizable as the sister her investigation uncovers.
A riveting psychological thriller and a haunting exploration of the fierce love between two sisters, the distortions of grief, and the terrifying power of the past, Under the Harrow marks the debut of an extraordinary new writer.

Read by Emma Powell

(p) 2017 Orion Publishing Group

Critics Review

The book's triumph is Nora's voice. Strangely but mesmerisingly combining dreamy musings and memories with a tenacious quest for the truth, her first-person story leaves you continually uncertain whether it is innocently incomplete, actively distortional or entirely reliable
Sunday Times
Under the Harrow has been prompting word-of-mouth enthusiasm and it's easy to see why.. Berry transfixes the reader... rarely has the device of the unreliable narrator been used so effectively.
THE GUARDIAN
In carefully measured prose, at once spare and haunting, Nora's obsession with finding the truth drives her on, and the reader must go with her
SUNDAY TIMES
Once I started reading Under the Harrow, I couldn't stop. It's like Broadchurch written by Elena Ferrante. I've been telling all my friends to read it-the highest compliment. Flynn Berry is a deeply interesting writer
Claire Messud, author of THE EMPEROR'S CHILDREN and THE WOMAN UPSTAIRS
Under the Harrow is a compulsively readable and atmospheric novel that I consumed almost in one sitting. The portrayal of the two sisters is subtle, original, and compelling
Rosamund Lupton, author of SISTER
Flynn Berry's writing is clear and spare yet textured and instantly immersive. You know from the get-go that something is not quite right, and this sense of unease and mystery grows and grows as you discover more about Nora's complex relationship with her sister. I read Under the Harrow very quickly and when I wasn't reading it I was thinking about it
Harriet Lane, author of HER and ALYS, ALWAYS
What grabbed me by the bones and hurled me through this read-in-one-sitting novel wasn't the plot, as compelling and tenacious and suspenseful as it is. Rather, it was Flynn Berry's perfect, unrelenting prose. This is flawless storytelling
Jill Alexander Essbaum, author of HAUSFRAU
A nail-biter that fans of Gone Girl and The Girl on the Train will no doubt love, Under the Harrow is swiftly carried along by a momentum of unraveling certainties that ramp up with every page, building to the end's thrilling crescendo. I loved this dark, chilling book and couldn't put it down
Suzanne Rindell, author of THE OTHER TYPIST
I read Under the Harrow through the night-I couldn't put it down. Berry's deft touch with atmosphere and emotion are sure to make this a stand out
Alex Marwood, author of THE WICKED GIRLS and THE KILLER NEXT DOOR
[A] compulsively readable novel of psychological suspense, narrated in a striking, original voice
NEW YORK TIMES - 9 Thrillers that TIMES Editors Think You Should Read this Summer
Under the Harrow offers exactly the kind of voracious, absorbing, one-sitting read that readers love. Taut with suspense, it is full of insight and suffused with emotions that will move you. The central relationship between two adult sisters is a heartbreaker, the tenderness, the loyalty, and the sorrow all ringing so true
Robin Black, author of LIFE DRAWING
Under the Harrow airdrops the reader into the unsettling aftermath of trauma, where shifting memories collide with obsession in a propulsive story of love, grief, and murder. Gripping and nuanced, this stylish thriller is not to be missed
Koethi Zan, author of THE NEVER LIST
An exquisitely taut and intense debut . . . There's a subtle strain of Daphne du Maurier's classic, Rebecca, in Under the Harrow . . . In both works -- if a reader is attentive enough -- the truth can be glimpsed in the shadows; lurking within the bare facts of what our narrator discloses . . .. A superbly crafted psychological thriller, it deserves to be celebrated for its own singular excellence
WASHINGTON POST
'Thrilling . . . underneath its hard-driving, page-turning, compulsively readable narrative is a striking, original voice all Berry's own . . . [Berry's] precise sentences call to mind Hitchcock's meticulous storyboards and enrich the work with a cinematic scope . . . Nora's casual, seemingly arbitrary observations bring vivid tension to the prose and signify a truly intelligent writer at work . . . riveting and surprising'
New York Times Book Review
a thriller to be gulped down in one sitting.
GOOD HOUSEKEEPING

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