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308 ratings | 64 reviews | avg rating:3.55

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Karen Barrow

Goodreads Author

Born

Trinidad and Tobago

Website

https://www.karenbarrowbooks.com

Genre

Historical Fiction, Suspense, Mystery

Influences

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... ...more

Member Since

January 2013

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/historicalfictionauthor

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Karen Barrow is the award-winning author of Palmyra, winner of the 2024 Whistler Independent Book Award for Fiction and a finalist for the Guernica Prize, the Page Turner Awards, and the Eric Hoffer Award. Her recently published novel, Dreams of the Alhambra weaves a modern mystery with a 15th-century tale of betrayal and ambition - two stories intertwined across time.

Palmyra is Caribbean Gothic suspense at its finest, beginning with the arrival of a mysterious stranger on a cocoa estate in Trinidad and the tragic chain of events that follow, as seen through the eyes of a precocious eleven-year-old boy.

Her newly published Dreams of the Alhambra, Spring 2026, takes readers to Spain across two timelines, weaving the story of a modern Canadia ...more

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Karen Barrow’s books

Average rating: 4.36 · 94 ratings · 31 reviews · 2 distinct works • Similar authors

	Palmyra 4.33 avg rating — 85 ratings — published 2024 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dreams of the Alhambra 4.67 avg rating — 9 ratings — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

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Karen Barrow's Blog

A first look at upcoming Dreams of the Alhambra

Two lives. Two centuries. A connection that defies time.

I’m so excited to share a first look at Dreams of the Alhambra—a story set between modern-day Spain and 15th-century Granada, where two lives echo across time.

If you enjoy historical intrigue with a touch of mystery and romance, I hope this one finds its way onto your shelf.

If this story sounds like your kind of read, adding it to your Want t Read more of this blog post »

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Published on March 28, 2026 08:18

Karen is Currently Reading

Karen Barrow is currently reading

From the Gates of Aksum

by Gérard A. Besson

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Mar 21, 2023 09:28PM

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I'm not sure how many authors could create a 99-year-old protagonist capable of carrying an entire novel, but Diana McCaulay makes it look effortless. Miss Pauline Sinclair is front and centre in a story that seamlessly pivots between the present and ...more
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Ever Since We Small by Celeste Mohammed is a collection of interconnected short stories centred on the descendants of Jayanti, a young widow who, in 1899, migrates to the Caribbean island of Trinidad as an indentured labourer rather than submit to sa ...more
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Karen Barrow and 391 other people liked Maciek's review of The Goldfinch: "Donna Tartt's latest novel has left this reader relatively unimpressed, especially considering the fact that she's author of The Secret History - a successful and popular novel which resulted in an entire generation of books which tried to be like it" Read more of this review »
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Karen Barrow made a comment on chai ♡’s review of The Goldfinch " How succinctly you captured my very own thoughts!! "
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Karen Barrow and 1444 other people liked chai ♡'s review of The Goldfinch: "The whole time I was reading this book I kept thinking "maybe what I really want is to re-read The Secret History instead.""
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Karen’s Quotes

“Believe me, my young friend, there is nothing - absolutely nothing - half so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats.”
― Kenneth Grahame, The Wind in the Willows

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“She left our Gdańsk-Morena apartment with same haste as Tata, gone in a mad dash. She must have prepared for it , trained hard and practised. Everything that fast is slow in planning. An earthquake that takes seconds to wreck everything is a result of billions of years of slipping and shoving of tectonic plates. Those plates have no choice but to live side by side, often on top of one another. They hate this setup. They push each other around, siblings vying for the top bunk, to the point of eruption, ruin and exhaustion. After the quake: calm. A sad empty calm, with too much time to think...”
― Aga Maksimowska

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