Welcome to Shelf Control — an original feature created and hosted by Bookshelf Fantasies.

Shelf Control is a weekly celebration of the unread books on our shelves. Pick a book you own but haven’t read, write a post about it (suggestions: include what it’s about, why you want to read it, and when you got it), and link up! For more info on what Shelf Control is all about, check out my introductory post, here.

Want to join in? Shelf Control posts go up every Wednesday. See the guidelines at the bottom of the post, and jump on board!

Title: The Truth According to Us
Author: Annie Barrows
Published: 2015
Length: 486 pages

What it’s about (synopsis via Goodreads):

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.

How and when I got it:

I picked up a paperback edition several years ago, most likely at our annual library sale.

Why I want to read it:

I don’t think I even read the synopsis of this book until just now as I started writing my Shelf Control post! The main reason I picked up a copy is that Annie Barrows is one of the authors of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which I really enjoyed.

I’m a fan of historical fiction, but I’ve realized that I haven’t read much set during the 1930s with a focus on New Deal projects, rather than focusing on the build-up to World War II. I do think this sounds really different and interesting — plus, a book group friend spoke highly of this book, and I tend to take her word for it when she recommends a book!

What do you think? Would you read this book?

Please share your thoughts!

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Want to participate in Shelf Control? Here’s how:

• Write a blog post about a book that you own that you haven’t read yet.
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