Vendor
	Mohrbooks Literary Agency Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
Categories
Thriller / suspense fiction

UNDER THE HARROW

Flynn Berry

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.

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.

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.

Available products
Book Published 2016-06-24 by Penguin Paperback Originals
Book Published 2016-06-24 by Penguin Paperback Originals

Comments

A nail-biter that fans of Gone Girl and 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.

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 one-sitting read a stand out among the year’s debuts. I suspect we will be hearing much more of her in the future.

UK & C: Weidenfeld & Nicolson/Orion ; Danish: Hr Ferdinand ; Dutch: Luiting-Sijthoff ; Estonian: Varrak Publishers ; French: Presses de la cite ; Hebrew: Ivrit ; Italian: Sperling ; Japanese: Hayakawa Publishing ; Norwegian: Cappelen Damm ; Romanian: Editura Trei ; Russian: AST ; Spanish: Futurbox Project SL ; Swedish: Modernista ; Turkish: Epsilon Yayincilik Hizmetleri

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.

Spencer Kornhaber, staff writer for The Atlantic, chose UNDER THE HARROW as the best book he read in 2016: “Flynn Berry’s debut novelUnder the Harrowplunges the reader into the mind of a woman who heads to small-town England to hang out with her sister—only to find she’s been murdered. Stunned and sickened, she encamps at a local inn to find the killer. The result is a brisk and chilling psychological study about grief, paranoia, and memory; a smart portrait of a complex sibling relationship; and, more than anything, an effective murder mystery.” Read more...

A slender tale full of polished, watchful prose, with an interesting kind of icy desperation in its bones.Flynn Berry is engaged here with the linked subjects of women, violence, and memory, in a fashion that is reminiscent of A.S.A. Harrison or Paula Hawkins.

UNDER THE HARROW has won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel by an American Author!!! Read more...

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 that pinned me to my chair. This is flawless storytelling.

Under the Harrow offers exactly the kind of voracious, absorbing, one-sitting read that readers love. Taut with suspense, itis 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.

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.

[Berry] has written a psychological suspense work fit to hold its own with many recent best-sellers. And she's done it with a narrator whose possible unreliability is not arbitrary but consistent with the well-wrought book's conception, thereby heightening the considerable suspense.

Underneath [the] hard-driving, page-turning, compulsively readable narrative is a striking, original voice all Berry's own.Nora's casual, seemingly arbitrary observations bring vivid tension to the prose and signify a truly intelligent writer at work.Riveting and surprising.

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.

"[Under the Harrow] envelopes you in its suspenseful plot from the first page.it's not solely a plot-fueled thriller, though: Berry's sentences are spare and biting.