The Truth According to Us

A Novel

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the co-author of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society comes a wise, witty, and exuberant novel, perfect for fans of Lee Smith, that illuminates the power of loyalty and forgiveness, memory and truth, and the courage it takes to do what’s right.

Annie Barrows once again evokes the charm and eccentricity of a small town filled with extraordinary characters. Her new novel, The Truth According to Us, brings to life an inquisitive young girl, her beloved aunt, and the alluring visitor who changes the course of their destiny forever.

In the summer of 1938, Layla Beck’s father, a United States senator, cuts off her allowance and demands that she find employment on the Federal Writers’ Project, a New Deal jobs program. Within days, Layla finds herself far from her accustomed social whirl, assigned to cover the history of the remote mill town of Macedonia, West Virginia, and destined, in her opinion, to go completely mad with boredom. But once she secures a room in the home of the unconventional Romeyn family, she is drawn into their complex world and soon discovers that the truth of the town is entangled in the thorny past of the Romeyn dynasty.

At the Romeyn house, twelve-year-old Willa is desperate to learn everything in her quest to acquire her favorite virtues of ferocity and devotion—a search that leads her into a thicket of mysteries, including the questionable business that occupies her charismatic father and the reason her adored aunt Jottie remains unmarried. Layla’s arrival strikes a match to the family veneer, bringing to light buried secrets that will tell a new tale about the Romeyns. As Willa peels back the layers of her family’s past, and Layla delves deeper into town legend, everyone involved is transformed—and their personal histories completely rewritten.

Read by Ann Marie Lee, Tara Sands, and Julia Whelan, with additional readings by Cassandra Campbell, Danny Campbell, Mark Deakins, Kimberly Farr, Kirby Heyborne, Lincoln Hoppe, Paul Michael, Linda Montana, and Arthur Morey.


“As delightfully eccentric as Guernsey yet refreshingly different . . . an epic but intimate family novel with richly imagined characters . . . Willa’s indomitable spirit, keen sense of adventure and innate intelligence reminded me of two other motherless girls in literature: Scout Finch in Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird and Flavia de Luce in Alan Bradley’s big-hearted British mystery series.”—The Washington Post

Great read!

I laughed and I cried. The characters were very entertaining! Narration was excellent and very believable.

There Is One Word For This Story

And that is "slow"! I did finish it and the most enjoyable aspect was the West Virginia twangy voice of sweet little Willa.

Well written and well read.

The best book I have read in a long time. The author weaves characters, plot, and subplots together into a smooth cohesive whole.
The readers were excellent as well.

Great story and great narration

I have a long commute and listen to a lot of audio-books. My last two were just so-so and the narration was seriously lackluster so I was really happy to come across this one and remember what good narration was. The characters were so well written and it would have been a shame if the narrators hadn’t been able to “bring them to life” but they clearly did. This could have been any small town with a host of interesting and believable characters and the small town mysteries were intriguing and kept you guessing. Makes the commute go extra fast. I’d love a second book to follow up on some of the younger characters as they get older.

Great book!

This was a great book! I expected it to be good, but it exceeded my expectations. It has mystery, romance, humor. The characters were so well drawn that I felt like I knew them.

The only thing I felt was a little jarring was the transition between narrators, but the story was so good that I consider that a minor point.

After listening to the book, I'm going to read the print version. I hardly ever do that. I either listen or read - that's how good this book is!