Feeling festive this fall? Check out our new title picks for the season.

Book Summary and Reviews of Trust Her by Flynn Berry

Trust Her by Flynn Berry

Trust Her

A Novel

by Flynn Berry

  • Critics' Consensus:
  • Published:
  • Jun 2024, 304 pages
  • Rate this book

  • Buy This Book

About this book

Book Summary

Two sisters find they can't outrun their past in the riveting new thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of Northern Spy, a Reese's Book Club pick.

Three years after they narrowly escaped the IRA's worst punishment for informing, Northern Irish sisters Tessa and Marian Daly have built a new life in Dublin with their young children. Though Tessa is haunted by the abrupt and violent end to her old life, she does her best to immerse herself in the joys of Finn's childhood and the rhythms of her new job at the Irish Observer.

It's a small island, though, and just as quickly as they disappeared, figures from the sisters' past surface to drag them back into the conflict. Tessa is told she must track down her old handler from MI5, Eamonn, and attempt to turn him into an IRA informant, or lose everything.

Tessa's reunion with Eamonn revives a host of feelings she has long attempted to bury. As their relationship intensifies and the pressure mounts, long-held secrets rise to the surface, and Tessa must navigate a treacherous landscape of shifting loyalties, all while trying to protect her beloved son.

With her signature hair-raising suspense, razor-sharp prose, and rich emotional depth, Edgar Award winner Berry has crafted both an unforgettable portrait of two fierce women in the Daly sisters, and her most spellbinding thriller to date.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"The author continues to interrogate the lasting, and live, impact of centuries of colonialism and violence on contemporary lives ... A meditation on generational trauma—along with well-scripted action and suspense." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"By so delicately humanizing the complex scope of Ireland's troubled history, Berry masterfully balances the lightning pace of a sweat-inducing thriller with the contemplative satisfaction of a cerebral analysis of uncertain family dynamics. With empathetic characters seen believably navigating unforeseen circumstances, the Edgar Award-winning Berry solidifies her burgeoning reputation as a stellar suspense writer." —Booklist (starred review)

"In Edgar winner Berry's harrowing sequel to Northern Spy…[her] moving depiction of a fractured family whose love runs as deep as its rifts should please existing series fans and win her new ones. Espionage buffs will find much to enjoy." —Publishers Weekly

"Flynn Berry is a must-read for me. Trust Her delivers her trademark blend of riveting suspense and beautiful emotional depth. You will love this novel." —Laura Dave, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Last Thing He Told Me

"Compulsively readable and beautifully written, Trust Her is another dazzling novel from Flynn Berry. Following Northern Irish sisters Tessa and Marion Daly as their past catches up with them, the story relentlessly ratchets up the tension, and I couldn't turn the pages fast enough. Berry effortlessly combines suspense with prose packed full of emotional depth in a human-centered story that resonates long after you finish reading." —Sarah Pearse, New York Times bestselling author of The Retreat and The Sanatorium

This information about Trust Her was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Flynn Berry

Flynn Berry is the author of Under the Harrow, winner of the 2017 Edgar Award for Best First Novel; A Double Life, a New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice; and Northern Spy, a Reese's Book Club Pick that was named one of the ten best thrillers of 2021 by The New York Times and The Washington Post. The recipient of a Yaddo fellowship, Berry is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers and Brown University.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more thrillers...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket
    Murder by Degrees
    by Ritu Mukerji
    Lydia Weston is among the first wave of female physicians and professors in the United States. ...
  • Book Jacket: Women's Hotel
    Women's Hotel
    by Daniel M. Lavery
    In the 1920s–1960s, the Barbizon Hotel for Women was a residential hotel where respectable ...
  • Book Jacket: Intermezzo
    Intermezzo
    by Sally Rooney
    In 2022, Sally Rooney delivered a lecture that later ran in The Paris Review, in which she stated ...
  • Book Jacket: Final Cut
    Final Cut
    by Charles Burns
    Illustrator and writer Charles Burns is no stranger to the horror circuit. Most prominently known ...

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket

    Libby Lost and Found
    by Stephanie Booth

    Libby Lost and Found is a book for people who don't know who they are without the books they love.

Who Said...

Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today.

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

H I O the G

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.