The Truth According To Us by Annie Barrows will be featured on the Radio 2 Book Club on Monday 13 July. The book was selected with the help of a panel made up of Reading Agency and library staff from across the UK.
We have an exclusive extract available for you to read as well as some discussion questions for your reading group.
The Truth According To Us
Miss Layla Beck is a very reluctant historian. Disinherited by her wealthy father, she is forced to spend the hot summer of 1938 in Macedonia, West Virginia, to chronicle the small town’s history for a book commissioned in celebration of its 150th anniversary. Macedonia’s past seems simple enough – brief, uneventful, quaint.
But then Layla meets the Romeyns: Jottie, Willa, Felix, Emmett, a family at once entertaining, eccentric, seductive, and inextricably bound up in Macedonia’s best kept secret. It’s a secret all the townsfolk have a stake in, but a secret Layla Beck is determined to unravel – no matter what the cost.
Selection panel review
Our reading panel of staff from The Reading Agency and public library staff really enjoyed The Truth According To Us – here are some of their comments:
“Such a wonderful story that tells the lives, loves and secrets of people in a small town. Very evocative writing – you will want to read it sitting on a porch sipping an iced tea! Perfect for summer reading, it’s a real joy.”
“It takes a little while to get into the story, as several different people’s stories are told, but it becomes gripping the more you find out about each character. Fine evocation of a hot summer in West Virginia – makes you feel hot even in a cool English spring!”
About the author
Annie Barrows is the co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, an international bestseller that was named one of the ten best books of the year by Time. In her latest novel, The Truth According to Us, she once again evokes the charm and eccentricity of a small town filled with extraordinary characters, troubled by a long-held mystery. Annie Barrows lives in California.
Get involved
Tune in to Simon Mayo’s Drivetime show on Monday 13 July to hear a live interview with Annie Barrows talking about her book.
Have you read The Truth According to Us? You can share your thoughts with us on Twitter, or post a review.
Want to find out more? The Radio 2 Book Club has a dedicated Twitter feed.
Linda Geddes
I thoroughly enjoyed The Truth According to Us although I must admit perhaps not quite as much as The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society.
The heavy, oppressive heat in the small town was really described beautifully as were the main characters Willa, Jottie and Leila as well as a myriad of other eccentric townspeople. The imaginative writing mingled with historic facts led me to be eager to find out the intimate secrets of the family and 1930s West Virginia was brought alive to me and I wanted to know more about the area and the history.
A well written tale and definitely not a disappointment although perhaps it could have been edited to be somewhat shorter.