Annie Barrows

Annie Barrows writes novels and children’s books, including the Ivy and Bean series, and coauthored The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society with Mary Ann Shaffer. The Truth According to Us, published by The Dial Press in 2015, is Barrows’s historical novel set in Macedonia, West Virginia, during 1938. It brings together Layla Beck, assigned by the Federal Writers’ Project to prepare a town history, and twelve-year-old Willa Romeyn, whose questions unsettle her family’s carefully maintained version of its past. Barrows uses letters, official history, and several viewpoints to examine how communities and families shape memory. The Depression-era setting also connects private loyalties with the public work of documenting local life. Before writing books, Barrows worked in publishing and editorial roles. Her experience across children’s series, collaborative fiction, and historical narrative gives The Truth According to Us a distinct place in a varied career built around voice, family, and storytelling.