I loved Setterfield’s previous novels and fully expected to like this one as well. I was right, I thoroughly enjoyed it. The story sucks you right in and is enchantanting. If I have one quibble, there are a lot of characters and changing narrators. All are richly drawn, but it was a bit difficult keeping all the storylines straight at the beginning. However once I got the rhythm I was all in. There’s a bit of what might be termed “magical whimsy” in the story as well so be forewarned if you need to have all loose ends explained realistically. I am already looking forward to her next one.

Satterfield is a masterful storyteller. The story is both real and fantastical at the same time. Many may even call it gothic.
Once Upon a River is not a quick read by any means. You want to take your time and truly read each page carefully. Each page transports you to the town of Radcot where you feel like you are one of their own, sitting at the Swan drinking a beer like the locals.
The story of the little girl will bring you to tears at times.
My only downside to this book is that sometimes elements are embellished too much thus causing a bit more drama than I would normally like

I love this book so much that I have not finished it---anxiously awaiting for the publication of this magical novel so that I might savor the absolute beautiful story-telling. I need to see the words on paper and can't wait to buy it.One of the best novels that I've read this year.

This book started off strong but then got kind of bogged down in the middle and I only finished it because I wanted to know it happened and it was an ARC. It was really too long. I didn’t find much satisfaction from it.

Once Upon a River
by Diane Setterfield
#NetGalley #OnceUponARiver #DianeSetterfield
I received this copy from NetGalley for an honest Review: I like noting better than a good old-fashioned STORY, and that is exactly what this book was...a STORY! Full of wonderful characters, a little mystery, a little magic, a little folklore, a little love; really this book has it all. I simply loved it!

The Swan is an inn located along the Thames that all of the local people gather in and tell stories. One winter night a stranger carrying a child stumbles into the inn. Once both the man and the girl are healed, they find out that the two are not related, and the girl is mute and unable to tell the villagers who she belongs to. Multiple families come forward claiming her, and each seem to be a realistic fit.
This story combines folklore, science, magic and myth into one delightful tale. It took me a little while to get into the rhythm of the story, but once I did I was enchanted.

Once Upon a River is not the typical book I would read. It's a historical fantasy that's highly character driven. The reason I picked it up is because of my love for Diane Setterfield's first book, The Thirteenth Tale. While this book didn't quite reach my love for that book, I still found it an interesting and engaging read.

Once Upon a River feels like reading a folktale. It's set along the Thames river, and revolves around the mystery of a girl who is plucked from the river. At first, she seems to be dead. Then, she is alive. More than one person claims she is theirs. No one really knows what to make of it all. It's a giant mystery that slowly unravels through multiple points of view over time. 

To be honest, it took me a few chapters to really get into this book and it's story. There is a lot of detail and many characters to follow. Once I was invested in the story and the mystery of the little girl, I was hooked. I wanted to know what happened to her and what part all of the people played. I won't go into the plot more because I don't want to give anything away, but I was impressed by the outcome and the revelations. I had some ideas of what had happened, but very few of them were true. Once Upon a River ended up surprising me and I loved that! 

I feel like I need to point out that this is a story that builds gradually over many pages. At 480 pages long, Once Upon a River is not a short book. It's slower paced and takes a while to build momentum. While some might shy away from reading it for those reasons, I actually found myself liking how it built and the time it took to tie everything together. That's not something I normally say, as I like faster paced reading experiences. Overall, Once Upon a River was a well written and plotted book.

I knew by the title that I was starting to read a fairy tale and mysticism can be confusing to me. I found the beginning a little rocky, but once I sorted out the characters and the setting I discovered I was reading a page turner. Two families lost four-year-old girls and when one was returned, clearly it could only belong to one of them. Or could it?

Setterfield wove a complex tale of personal relationships, superstitions and life ruled by a river where storytelling was the height of entertainment, and where a Black man, a crippled woman and the river gypsies were viewed with suspicion and equally feared. I thought she made an interesting socioeconomic statement I compared how the Vaughns, the Armstrongs and the baker valued and treated their children. Highly recommend!

Infused with the lyrical prose of Diane Setterfield, this mysterious, magical book kept me turning page after page, after page, after page (yes, 480 pages to be exact). I did think the book could have been shorter without losing any of the pacing or characterization, but that is my only complaint. It is a true rendering of the late Victorian era along the Thames River. Much research went into this book which gives the reader the feeling of living alongside the river and the many characters. The river is the main character which runs through the lives of each secondary character; kind and determined Robert Armstrong, the hopeful Vaughans, psychologically damaged Lily White, the well adjusted Inn keepers Joe and Margot and son Jonathan and Rita the nurse who stands in as the village doctor, plus a villain steeped in evil. All play intricate rolls in the mystery that is the lost and found four year old girl.
I have looked forward to reading another book by this author since I read her wonderful novel THE THIRTEENTH TALE; ONCE UPON A RIVER did not disappoint. It is moody, frightening, uplifting, engrossing, perfectly nuanced and superbly constructed. I highly recommend this book.

A bit slow paced, but the author uses her imagination to help us travel along with her story if the river, and the affect it has in all who live on it. Descriptive and well written.

Beautiful writing, somewhat distanced though. I never found a person to connect with or a way in emotionally. I was interested but not hooked, I admired the writing but wasn't swept away by it. I wanted to love this so much more than I did, but even so I found myself recommending it to a friend who likes historical fiction.

There are some books that are meant to be devoured and read quickly, and others that require slow reading and digesting of the story. Once Upon a River falls into the latter category. Diane Setterfield crafts a beautiful story on the river Thames of a missing girl found dead… until it turns out she is alive. There are many characters and all quite fully developed, with detailed backgrounds. The writing took a bit to get used to, but the story-telling created a world the reader can easily get lost in!

Thanks to Atria Books and NetGalley for an advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

Meandering, flowing like a river itself, Once Upon a River is a fairy tale for adults, set in mid-19th century England. Once upon a winter's night, a child was taken from the river, apparently dead, who yet returned to life. Two children of local families are missing, and a 40+ year old woman also claims, improbably, that the girl is her lost sister. Is the girl from the river one of the three missing children, and if so, to which family does she belong? Accepting of both families, the girl from the river never speaks, and, at only about 4 years of age, has no other way of telling whence she came. The mystery is investigated by the photographer, injured in a boating accident, who pulled the child from the river, and the nurse who was called to the inn to care for the two of them. Totally engaging.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Atria/Emily Bestler Books for providing an advance reading copy in return for my honest opinion.

This is the first book I have read by this author, and I found Diane Setterfield to be an accomplished storyteller. From the very first paragraph, I felt like I was settling down to read a carefully woven tale filled with wonder and mystery, told by someone who didn’t skimp on details.

The setting is masterfully filled out at every point, and the river plays a huge part in the story. The descriptions of the river, how it grows bigger in some places and is almost a trickle in others; the temperature and the people who use it to get around, plays a huge part in how people live. The book is set during a time of superstition with a bit of magic thrown in for in for good measure. Many of the characters are accomplished storytellers, weaving their thoughts about the occurrences of the past and present into stories that they tell each other. All this fits together perfectly in bringing the characters to life in a way that made me feel as if understood them. There were good characters and bad ones, as all the very best books show different sides of human nature. By the end of the book, everything was neatly wrapped up in a way that made sense; there weren’t any ridiculous endings here.

I enjoyed this story, and I’m looking forward to reading more books by this author. I feel this is worthy of five stars.

I just couldn't get into the story. It moved too slowly and I got bored. Maybe this genre just isn't for me or my patrons.

A beautifully written story, with well-crafted characters and a slowly unfolding plot. This book, while full of mystery and drama, is not a thriller. The gorgeous language and sympathetic characters make this a delight to read. I was always eager to return to the river and her secrets. I highly recommend this book, particularly if you enjoy a slower pace. Well-done.

Once Upon a River has the familiar feel of a wordy Britishy novel set in a vague past.

Even though the blurb tells you this book is about a mysterious little girl, she’s just the main motivator behind the other characters’ actions and doesn’t necessarily take part in the plot herself. We usually only hear about her through other people’s invented stories and imaginings, but that says more about the storytellers than it does about the girl.

So instead, this is the story of the series of families who coincidentally all lost a child of this age and appearance, and are wondering if this is her.

Therefore, there’s TONS of characters and side-plots; so the first half of the book is spent building up all of their background information and it’s only after the 50% mark that Once Upon a River really picks up and starts to hold your interest. There’s so, so many stories in here that I feel it would work even better as a binging TV mystery/drama, than as a nearly 500-page book.

After the halfway point, the two most interesting characters to keep your eye on are Rita, the unofficial doctor in town, and Henry Daunt, the photographer. It’s through them that this story finds its fuel and transitions from “creative gossipers blathering aimlessly at a small-town inn” to “wow it’s a shocking mystery novel now”.

Another very interesting character to keep an eye on is Mr. Armstrong; but he hides a lot about himself, and the connections that tie all of his stories together just take too long to coalesce. However, his whole story is very dramatic in the end and it’s worth waiting for.

Not really sure who I’d recommend this to since the book felt quite long and uneventful for the majority of it. If you're willing to sit through 240 pages of exposition, the ending has quite a number of shocking, eyebrow-raising twists that are well worth it. And if you’re looking for the same gothic feel from The Thirteenth Tale by Dianne Setterfield, you won’t really find it here, but it does have some of the same dark mystery feels.

p.s. This book uses the word “gypsies” multiple times, and the word “negro” at least once. It IS set in the past but I know some readers prefer to be informed anyway.
 
This book comes out on December 4th 2018!

I loved Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale and was excited to read something new by her, but this book sadly lacks the spellbinding magic of that one. I was captivated by the premise and enjoyed how the story has the feel of a throwback fable early on. However, once the focus expanded to include perspectives of the various individuals who claimed the revived girl as theirs, much of my interest was lost; after a while, I didn't care much about discovering her true identity, which is problematic when this is the central mystery of the tale. It's a shame that the pieces didn't all come together well, as the setting is rich and the writing is quite good throughout.

A young girl is found, brought to an old local tavern by a man who is both distraught and in need of help. The child appears dead and the man is in such bad shape he can't tell the people what has occurred, where he found this child, or how he managed to pull her from the ice cold water of the Thames. But then the child breathes after life was thought to have left her, and the story is set in motion for a tale with includes the magical, the mystical, folktales of yore, and a journey that takes the reader onto a path of intrigue, suspense, romance, and magic.

Another child has gone missing these past two years and her parents have lived a life full of agony at their loss Could this child be their Amalia? Another family with an errant older son feels that this child could be his daughter, Alice, their granddaughter. Then there is Rita, a nurse, who doctors both the child and the village. Is this child the daughter of her heart? What about the man, the photographer, who pulled the child from the water? What does he feel and see in this young girl? Still there is another woman who, although she is in her forties claims, this four year old is her lost sister. How can that be?

Then there is the child. She seems ethereal, never speaking, seeming to be birthed from folktales of long ago, a child of the water in which she was found. She is the child they all want and yet will she ever belong to any of them?

I absolutely loved this atmospheric tale of love, loss and what happens in the in between. Having read and loved Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale, I was ever so anxious to read this one. I was not disappointed as Ms Setterfield wove a tale that was magical, atmospheric, and otherworldly. It managed to entrance me and pull me into its mystical yet eerie presence. I definitely recommend this story if you love books that build upon the spiritualistic and the imaginary nature of all tales handed down through the years.

Thank you to Diane Setterfield who kept me entranced, Atria, and NetGalley for providing a copy of this mesmerizing story.

The premise was great - but there were way too many characters to keep track, and it felt like the story was trying to do too much. I could never fully get into it, and my mind kept wandering. I had high hopes for this one.,