Forty years of silence. One impossible weekend.


This Much is True: A Novel

by Katherine A. Sherbrooke

A mother faces an impossible choice as her daughter's future hangs in the balance.

On her fifty-eighth birthday, Veronica Harmon feels blessed—with a fulfilling veterinary career, a wonderful marriage and three grown children, her youngest newly engaged and celebrating her first solo art show that very night. But when Veronica meets her daughter’s future in-laws, Ted and Belinda, who’ve flown across the country for the show, she is shocked to recognize Ted from an incident during high school that changed the trajectory of her life. Having never told a soul about that night, Veronica’s past reemerges like a live grenade.

Over the course of a pre-arranged weekend at the Harmon’s home intended to better acquaint the two families, Veronica unearths troubling memories, questions her own recollections and grapples with the impossible. If she quietly welcomes this man as a permanent part of her family she will be forced to live with a devastating lie, but if she reveals their shared history, she will expose her private shame and destroy her daughter’s future. Just when she thinks there is no viable solution, she has an epiphany that flips the script on what it means to be a survivor and the choices that are hers to make.

A powerful novel about trauma, truth, and the courage to reclaim your own story.



Praise for This Much is True

“Astute, arresting, and profound, This Much is True is your mother’s story and your father’s, your daughter’s and your son’s, your sister’s and your brother’s. So many women have been waiting to read this novel and so many men need to read it.”

—Susan Donovan Bernhard, Author of Winter Loon and Westerly


About the Author

Katherine A. Sherbrooke is the award-winning author of three novels: the New York Times notable Leaving Coy’s Hill, which was a finalist for the Massachusetts Book Award; Fill the Sky, finalist for the Foreward INDIES Book of the Year and winner of an Independent Press Award, and The Hidden Life of Aster Kelly. Her work has also appeared in Cognoscenti and Zibby Magazine. She served as Chair of the Board of GrubStreet, the nation’s premier creative writing center, from 2013-2023 and lives on the South Shore of Massachusetts.

Saturday, Sept. 19, 6PM | Perkins Cove Bookshop, Ogunquit, ME

A Conversation with Katherine A. Sherbrooke at Perkins Cove Bookshop

Celebrate the release of This Much Is True with Katherine A. Sherbrooke in conversation with Cynthia Reeves, followed by a signing.

SEE ALL OF KATHERINE'S UPCOMING EVENTS

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