I have a long, boring commute.

My first alarm goes off at 5.45 am and in winter it is just dreadful. I leave the house at 7.20 am and walk to the train station and quite often find myself walking in weather where the rain is hitting me from the side.

In spring and summer it’s not too painful as there’s a park that I walk through and it honestly makes my little heart sing to see the ducks and swans. I also get to say hi to the dog walkers I see each morning.

In winter it’s far too scary to walk through the park so instead I have to take the path by the road and all I get is cars splashing me and a creepy guy I don’t make eye contact with.

I also have to walk the other side. All in all, I actually walk six miles a day. Good for my health but my feet hate me.

In addition, there is a train journey. The train to work isn’t so bad but is often cancelled because the English rail networks literally can’t handle anything and the train back home is all sorts of ‘yeuch’ on account of me never getting a seat. This is problematic for both my crappy back and the fact that I have a leg oedema. Ah, health problems (I have no pelvic lymph nodes, it’s a long story).

Neil Gaiman wrote a book called, ‘Fortunately, the Milk’ and I feel like my work life would appropriately be summed up with a book called, ‘Unfortunately, the Train.’

But at least I have all that commuting time to read. Not that I always use it for reading.

For me the sign of a ‘meh’ book is one that I don’t pick up when I’m on the train. If I’d rather scroll through my Facebook feed then you’ve lost me. If I am basically running to get on the train simply because I just can’t wait to continue reading then we’re onto a winner.

For Once Upon a River, we were indeed, onto a winner. I couldn’t wait for those morning and evening commutes because I just couldn’t wait to see where this story was going.

Now why I have told you all this? Why did I meander my way to the simple statement of ‘I just couldn’t wait to see where this story was going.’ Well my friends it’s because of this:

If you hated the fact that I took an age to get to the point and you genuinely didn’t care for my mini-story or how I begun this review then you are NOT going to like Once Upon a River.

It’s ok, there’s nothing wrong with not liking that style but if you don’t like that style then you’re probably going to struggle with this book.

Once Upon a River is a story that is very much like a river. By this I mean it meanders along, drifting at its own pace, splitting into rivulets that flow off somewhere else before re-joining the main waterway.

This book does that. We are following the main plot and, like a river, the main plot goes one way. We begin one night at an inn and the arrival of a man who crashes through the door holding a seemingly dead child. This plot line is linear. This is our ‘inciting incident’ and there is a sequence of events that occur afterwards, all centered around who this girl is and who will claim her.

BUT…. we drift away as we go. We skip into the minds of a host of characters (there are a lot to keep track off), some primary, some secondary and some barely lasting a page but we slip back and forward through their lives.

By this I mean that we experience the current events of the plot with these characters but then we’ll go back to a specific point in their life before re-joining them at the present. Then we’ll go back again to another point.
It can seem confusing and rather random but each time we slip off-stream we learn something new.

Ultimately what seems to be irrelevant information not only helps us understand the characters but it helps piece together the mystery of the child.

Personally I loved this approach but I get that it’s not for everyone.

What I also get wouldn’t be for everyone is the vagueness of what genre this book is. Is it historical fiction? I guess. Is it romance? There’s love of all sorts in it. Mystery? A folktale? Magical realism??

Yes, yes, yes. No. I don’t know. That is also part of its charm for me. Is a mysterious figure punting on the river a man who just happens to be punting? Is it the villagers version of Charon?

The characters don’t know so you’ll never know. If you don’t like the interspersion of ‘maybe magical, maybe mundane’ then again – this book is probably not for you. If you don’t like unclear endings, this book isn’t for you.

I will willingly suspend belief if the merging of myth and reality is done well and I really did think that it was done beautifully here. Not just in terms of how the story was constructed but how we got to drift in and out of the characters too.

This book also highlights what people are like as a whole; there are some wonderful people in this world and unfortunately there are some truly nasty ones and when our characters come across the latter it feels like this could be a Dickensian novel.

Charles Dickens was particularly sympathetic towards those who didn’t confirm to Victorian society’s incredibly limiting standards. He was also astute at highlighting their suffering and how unjust it was and there is an element here of that in Once Upon a River as well.

The story setting, while not in a time I have lived, is placed in a part of the world I am incredibly familiar with. I believe the author lives in that part of the world and in my opinion it shows. The river and the surrounding communities feels incredibly vivid and so much was recognisable to me, even down to the regular’s in the pub and how they interacted.

There were some bits I didn’t love – I wanted to spend more time in some characters heads than others but that’s down to personal preferences and some characters endings felt incomplete.

The villain of the piece and the reveal of who/ what had orchestrated some events felt a little Deus Ex Machina with the connections and there was a scene or two that felt overly dramatic and didn’t make an emotional connection with me.

Overall, this was a story within a story with a side step to more stories. I wish I had read it in summer on the banks of a river, or in a pub garden or by the park’s pond but honestly I’m just so glad I read it.

I'm not going to lie - I am a big fan of Diane Serrerfield's The Thirteenth Tale. I read it years ago and it still comes back to haunt me every so often. Sometimes I'll mention it when I talk to my mum (she was also a big fan). The details of that tale have long since faded from my memory but I remember how it made me feel which, to me, is vastly more important than the actual story. 

Initially I felt that Once Upon a River was moving too slowly for me. Then I realised I was trying to read it too quickly. Because this book contains a true story. One that goes at its own pace. It cannot be rushed because the beauty is in the telling, not in the action. Once I accepted this I realised that 5% per day was the perfect way to read this book - the chapters even seemed to align so that I was able to digest the story overnight before returning to the tale the next evening. This isn't my preferred method of reading if I'm honest but every so often a book comes along that compels me to act in a way that's out of the ordinary. This is one of those books.

This book about storytelling casts a wide net. Many of the characters are storytellers and, it has to be noted, that understanding some of the events to be exaggerated or elaborated is necessary. There are hardships for many of the characters, which are dealt with sensitively for the reader, much like a good storyteller can elude to a tragedy without needing to say the words. The tale has an ethereal feeling to it, showing the spiritual quality that storytelling can have. The truth is a story that can be shared in many ways. 

I don't want to give away any spoilers, mostly because I don't think that the action and events in the story are the important part (in some stories they are but not in this one). 

I didn't love this book to start with but by the end I did. The only other book that made me change my mind more than this was Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier. I think that praise speaks for itself. 

I swithered over whether this book was a 4.5 or a 5/5. I think that this beautifully told story will stay with me for years to come so it has to be a 5/5. I would, without doubt, recommend it to anyone who likes to read and appreciates the craft of storytelling. 

I received an ARC from the publisher through Netgalley.

Beautiful, atmospheric and compulsive, Once Upon a River is a book that will stay with you for a while.

An unusual tale of a little girl rescued from a river, and where she came from. Who is she? Who does she belong to?

There are elements of magic in this tale, which would usually put me off, but in fact, I found the whole thing enchanting.

I enjoyed this book. Loved the atmospheric setting at the inn and of solstice. This is a real character driven story, and there's quite a few to get to know and has a grown-up fairy-tale feel to it.
The writer takes her time with the story-telling and it is fairly long, so it's something you can savour and take your time with and enjoy the intelligently descriptive prose. It has a little bit of several genres: magic, folklore, fantasy, supernatural, the Gothic, and historical fiction. I enjoy story-telling and listening to stories being told and this book reminded me of that, and I loved that importance of telling stories that seems to be honoured in this book.
Overall an enjoyable read encompassing a variety of themes from love and loss to treachery.

I really enjoyed Diane Setterfield's earlier novel The 13th Tale so was excited to have the opportunity to read and review this new novel. If the reader replaces the title Once Upon a River with Once Upon a Time there is a clue to the structure of this historical fantasy. Storytelling is the heart and soul of the narrative with storytellers influencing people's beliefs in much the way that the media can be twisted to shape beliefs today. The river (Thames) is in many ways the main character of the novel, taking and giving back life and being the backdrop to the main events throughout the story. The plot takes place over the course of a year which starts with the winter solstice - a new beginning? Two young girls have gone missing, assumed by some to have drowned, when one young girl appears mysteriously to have come back to life from the river. Is she the missing Amelia; the missing Alice or someone else altogether. Her appearance influences in a positive way the lives of many disparate characters throughout the book. I really appreciated the characterisation in Setterfield's book and the ways in which so many of her characters challenged the societal norms of the time without this being done in an expositional fashion. Through Rita, the local 'goodwife' we learned about medical knowledge at the time. With Henry, the photographer who saves the young girl, we learn about early photographic method. From Robert, the black farmer, we find out about prejudice and humanity. Jonathan, the son of the publican, has unspecified learning difficulties and is a reminder throughout to stay true to the tale and believe in the power of story. What I believe Diane Setterfield has done here is to create a very powerful and beautifully crafted story which helps the reader to believe. There is sadness and tragedy in the tale but in the end it is life affirming.

Based around a fictional 19th century inn 'The Swan' along the River Thames, Once Upon A River is a folk-lore style tale which begins as a lot of tales do, on a dark night in the middle of winter. The Swan is a local village inn known locally as the place to go to exchange stories, one evening an injured stranger appears in the doorway carrying what appears to be the drowned body of a young girl. The local nurse, Rita, is called for and both individuals are examined, everyone is just coming to terms with what's happened when the young girl starts breathing. The story continues to follow the village for the next year where several families lay claim to the mute four year old.

Having never heard of the author it was the cover which drew me to request a copy of this, had I been given just the description I probably wouldn't have picked it up and its definitely a tick in the 'read more outside my comfort zone' box. The story-telling in this is excellent, the pacing is slow enough to really build suspense without feeling like its dragging out; its a mysterious tale that you can really get lost in and get caught up in your own theories.

When marking this as read I sat for a good few minutes trying to decide whether this was 3 or 4 stars; in the end I settled on 3 just because while I think this was very well written and its a great story I took a while to get involved with the story so I had to force myself to read the first third before I started to get any real enjoyment out of it but for people who enjoy mysterious tales this offers some well thought out characters with intriguing back stories and a plot that will leave you guessing right up to the end.

As heartwarming as it is breaking and as beautiful as it is grim. A truly wonderous tale which i could imagine bards of old telling in taverns for their trade. The prose flow eponomously.

Stunning!

Wow! What a wonderful book! It is beautifully written; magical and atmospheric throughout with the river dominating the lives of all of the characters. An amazing and captivating story.

Having read Diane Setterfield’s Thirteenth Tale my expectations were high for this book. It started well with a stranger staggering into The Swan Inn on the banks of Thames one dark evening on Winter Solstice (longest night) in 1887. He was injured and had a lifeless form in his hands which was initially taken for a large puppet. The large puppet was ignored but after some time the onlookers realised that it was lifeless body of a girl who had apparently drowned. She was put in a cold cellar and ignored. But then along came local nurse Rita and the girl came back to life... It all sounds like a gripping story but the preamble to get this far had been quite tortuous with much talk about the history of the people in the inn and their fondness of story telling.

Their story-telling then became a large part of the book and got a little dull in the middle as stories were told and I skimmed a little. Some stories however then became more interesting as they involved missing girls, some recent and some 2 years ago. The question was who was the girl that had come back from the dead?

The plot livened up in the last third and that went more quickly but I still found it hard going at times with too much emphasis on mystery and folk lore.

With thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Not for me. I am sure this would be a great book for many people, it’s written well, but just not something I enjoyed

In the nineteenth century, in a village on the banks of the Thames, a mysterious young drowned girl miraculously returns to life, creating ripples that will change the lives of those around her forever.

I was swept away by this tale from the very beginning. It explores the nature of rivers and storytelling in a lyrical way and I found myself highlighting quite a few lines for their succinct truth.

I was thoroughly entranced by the story, its setting and its characters. The river acts as a character in itself, shaping the lives of those living and working along its banks, giving and taking life. The central characters of the story are wonderfully realised and their personalities and their losses and hopes are depicted wonderfully.

Mystery lies at the heart of the novel, with the true identity of the young girl seeming to change like the wind. In addition to the wonderful writing of the characters and setting, the plot is excellently woven, untangling at just the right moment with a beautiful ending. The mystery extends to the blurry lines between stories, truth and belief, and the power all of these can have.

I recommend this book to anyone who loves to get lost in a story and let it take you wherever it flows.
Thank you to Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for the opportunity to read and review this title.

This book is beautifully written. Everything is described in really good detail which makes it easy to imagine the characters and their surroundings. I am giving this three stars as I could not get totally engrossed in the story. I found it a chore in places to keep reading. Maybe it was just not my type of book .

Thank you to Netgalley for my copy.

Once Upon a River is an enthralling story. This story is the perfect companion to roaring fire and a rainy night. 

Diane Setterfield has created a story that balances on the edges of multi genre. This has created a story that feels so real and so magical at the same time. 

Once Upon a River introduces us several different character that are affected by the miracle girl. My favourite character is Rita, the Nurse/ Midwife that smarter than any doctor. Her passion is for science, and caring for people. If I lived than I would have called on Rita and no other. Once Upon a River as a whole is filled with amazing strong woman. 

I feel like we need to arrange a reading of Once upon a River in an old inn by the Thames, a different person reading different parts of the story, like the Swan old regulars. 

My rating for Once Upon a River is 4 out of 5.

‪ https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/blog/2019/1/16/once-upon-a-river-by-diane-setterfield‬


Stories can be infinite, that collection of characters we meet at the start of a book all have had their own lives and mysteries. Some of which are key to the story to come and some are never discovered by anyone but inside the author’s head. In this fascinating mystery Diane Setterfield gives us a tale where one mysterious event unveils and then untangles a series of mysteries, puzzles and relationships that a tranquil Victorian town on the edge of the river Thames is the last place you would usually expect such revelations.

In the wider world of Victorian Britain people are looking at the ideas of Darwin but in the Swan Inn people tend to trade stories of the local people and events. The regulars however find themselves in one of their own when a man covered in blood arrives holding what is first thought to be a doll but then instead to be the body of a young girl. Mysteriously the local healer finds her once again breathing hours later without any rational explanation. Immediately this raises a question how and who is this young lady and who is her mysterious companion? As news travels of this events three separate groups think they know the identity of the child and she could be a blessing, a threat or a reward.

Over the next twelve months we watch this town swirl in a series of episodes examining the characters within it. We meet the Vaughans a well to do young couple whose happiness was ruined when their only child vanished a few years ago and now are constantly haunted by the past; the extremely capable Robert Armstrong is concerned about his stepson and discovers a family tragedy resulting in his only grandchild missing while on the riverbanks the parson’s housekeeper Lily wonders if somehow on the mysterious river that her missing younger sister of many years ago has finally returned to her.

Setterfield makes a brilliant comparison with stories and a river. It’s a series of contributing tales all ultimately weaving together (some from darker places and some from the skies). The story like a river has moment of speed and action and quitter more reflective leisurely breathing spaces where even some minor characters can tell us the tale of their lives and how they fit into this world. I loved the character of Robert Armstrong a clever, kind and level-headed farmer prepared to give compassion not just to his family but animals and those we meet and whom easily makes people look beyond their prejudice based on his skin colour. There is also Rita the healer who is an atheist who left a convent and studies science for her increasing knowledge of medicine sought out by the town.

There is a whole host of characters we get to know, love and hate as the omnipresent narrator moves across from person to person as time passes. At no stage did I find this a sprawling mess as some authors have a habit of overindulging themselves in such works but instead I felt I was in a huge episodic mystery that would easily fit the world of The Moonstone or The Woman in White with an added dose of humour. Overall this is more a mystery as we try to establish who this young girl is, and all the theories seem valid, but this town is on the edge of the river and there is a beautiful ambiguity if this world despite the dawning of medicine and evolutionary theory is entirely rational. On the river there may be the mysterious immortal Quietly who can either rescue a river traveller in distress or perhaps take to another place from which they will never return. With scenes set at the equinoxes and solstices there is a hint of a wild magic that may have taken an interest in these events which I think give it an eerie beauty when you see mysterious floods, supernaturally smart animals and child who now lives once more.

This is a delicious mystery that I think readers who enjoy an immersive story with lots of engaging characters and a puzzle that the reader will be both surprised and entertained by the revelations they will discover. I found myself sucked into this tale and the world it holds which was an extremely entertaining read indeed. A perfect winter night’s tale.

I finished reading this half an hour ago and have that bittersweet feeling that goes with the end of a wonderful book.  This is my first five star reads of the year, and last year I only had two out of 92 books as I save them for something really special.

The story is set on the Thames river between London and Oxford centred around the Swan Inn, which like all good pubs, is the hub of the community.  On the longest night of the year, a stranger enters the Swan, dripping wet with his face all battered holding what looks at first to be a doll.  He hands the doll to somebody and then collapses.  The doll turns out to be a child, around 4 years old, not breathing, presumed dead.  Rita the nurse is sent for to attend to the man and the body of the child is put out in the cold summer room.  A while later, Rita notices that the child is now breathing.  Is it a miracle?

But who is the child?  Three parties turn up the next day claiming that the child could be theirs.  The Vaughans, a wealthy family whose two-year-old daughter was kidnapped and despite the ransom demand being paid, their child was never found.  Mr Armstrong a man whose granddaughter is missing presumed drowned and Lily White, a "simple" woman whose sister went missing many years ago.

So many wonderful characters, and at times it seems a little like a fairytale.  The good are very good and the bad are very bad but they are all utterly human and believable.  My favourite has to be Rita, the nurse as I am also nurse also I guess feel a certain kinship.  In many ways, she is a doctor and treated like one, but she is a woman and it's the year 1787,  so nurse as good as she can get.

Henry Daunt, the man who rescued the child from the river, is a photographer, who is based on the historical figure of Henry Taunt who is famed for photographing the Thames extensively and took 53000 photos of the area using the wet collodion process, an early form of photography.

The pacing was a bit slow at times.  The book starts well, but then it does seem to drift off a bit and I think the few folks that didn't finish it did so around the 15% mark,  it really does seem to pick up again and become much more engaging a little while after that, so stick with it, it is worth it, trust me.   The bonus of the slower pacing is that we have the time to savour the beautifully descriptive writing.

This is a quirky, atmospheric tale with touches of Gothic in its local legends and strange goings-on. Set in the mid-Victorian era, the story begins on the winter solstice, when day turns quickly into night. Men and women are packed into The Ship Inn, in the village of Radcot on the banks of the Thames, where story-telling is a speciality. Little do they know that a real life legend is about to unfold, bringing fame to the village, heartbreak to some and joy to others.

A badly-injured man bursts into the inn, carrying a small, lifeless girl. The man is photographer Henry Daunt (based on a real-life photographer with a similar name), but the girl's identity is a mystery. While both gain strength, they remain in the Ship Inn, to be cared for by nurse/midwife Rita Sunday and the large and bustling Bliss family, innkeepers to the Ship.

Many people want to claim the girl as theirs: strong and kindly farmer Robert Armstrong; his errant son Robin; childless nurse Rita, hapless Lily White and the wealthy young Vaughans, whose own daughter was abducted two years previously. While Robert Armstrong, Henry Daunt and Rita Sunday are sympathetic and believable, others such as Robin Armstrong and Lily White could have stepped straight out of a Victorian melodrama. Indeed, there are so many interesting characters that it takes a while to fix them all in your head.

This is a tale of contradictions: good and evil, superstition and science, belonging and not fitting in: a time when photography was new, Darwinism controversial and railways for city people. Life was slow when you could travel only as far as your feet, a horse or a boat would take you; most people lived in the same village all their lives.

Just as the moors are a feature of the Bronte novels, so the Thames dominates this story: a means of travel, source of sustenance for people, animals and crops but deadly in flood or darkness. It's a time when country people still believed in ancient myths from Quietly the ferryman (who rescues drowning people if it's not their time to die) to the Cricklade Dragons and changeling children. Indeed, it is little details, like Downs Syndrome boy Jonathan Bliss being taken for a changeling faerie child that make the book for me.

Sections of the story have the brooding atmosphere of Wuthering Heights others the psychological realism of A Woman in White. There is lightness, compassion and humour too. My only complaint is that the ending was almost too tidy. Everything was resolved. I would have liked to see just one thread left dangling.

Good to see pigs featured as it's the Year of the Pig from 5 Feb! For fans of Wilkie Collins, Thomas Hardy, the Brontes, Dickens or atmospheric modern fiction such as Sarah Perry's The Essex Serpent and Melmoth.

Going by the blurb and the gushing reviews I’ve seen, I had high expectations for this book.

While I enjoyed the lyrical and beautiful prose, I could not get into the story and found my interest declining the further I read.

DNF at 11%. It just was wasn’t for me.

Thank you to Diane Setterfield, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers and NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Settlefield is a masterful storyteller and Once Upon a River, again demonstrates her prowess. If you liked her previous two novels this will also please. A young girl is recovered from a the Thames, apparently dead, but some time later is found to be alive. Three people believe they know the girl and have a claim on her.. This sounds like the beginning of a fairy tale or a legend and the books does have an mythic quality to it, where the characters are both realistic but otherworldly. Folklore and superstition is woven through the narrative and nothing will surprise the reader. A very pleasurable read. A beautifully written tale and a pleasure to read.

https://lynns-books.com/2019/01/14/once-upon-a-river-by-diane-setterfield/
4.5 of 5 stars
Once Upon a River was one of my most anticipated reads for 2019. This is my third book by this author and frankly I find her a storyteller of unusual depth and charm. Her books have an almost ‘old quality’ and I find myself reading them with a powerful sense of nostalgia that takes me back to a time when my gran used to tell me and my sister old tales, some seemed to come straight out of her own imagination, some would be familiar, but those were times that we both loved and still hanker after. Once Upon a River has a beautiful fairytale feel that evokes times of old and tells the story of an ancient inn where people still come to share stories over a jug or two of beer.

As the story begins the regulars of the Swan Inn are exchanging yarns when the door bursts open and in steps a man carrying a child, the two of them drenched and clearly the victims of an accident of some sort. At first appearance the drinkers, maybe due to the drink, mistake the child for a puppet, her skin is so pale and waxy, and they focus their attention on the injuries sustained by the man until the innkeeper’s son realises this isn’t a puppet at all but a little girl of maybe 4 years. The local nurse is called for who, in no nonsense fashion, sets about attending to the man’s injuries. Meanwhile the body of the little girl is placed out of the way – it’s too late to treat her injuries, no pulse, dilated pupils and waxy skin tell their own tale. And yet, something bothers the nurse, a nagging doubt that drives her to check the little girl once again and discover that she isn’t dead after all. Mistake or miracle – the story is about to begin and their will be plenty of hypothesising and embroidering along the way.

I’m not going to elaborate further on the plot in this review. This is a mystery story with a historic feel that uses folklore, superstition and magical realism to drive the tale forwards.

There are quite a number of characters involved. We have a young couple who have suffered a terrible loss and are unable to drag themselves out of the depths of despair, we have a young girl who lives a strange existence on a remote spit of land along the Thames, we have a charismatic farmer and his family who seem to live a charmed life but for their oldest son who seems to be going astray somewhat, and we have the nurse, who long ago decided not to marry and bear children, having seen only too often the price paid in childbirth, however, that was before she found herself with a would be suitor in the form of the local photographer (who coincidentally was the injured man from the start of the story who has become fixated with the nurse who tended him). Finally, the young girl whose miraculous recovery sparked stories to spread like wildfire up and down the banks of the Thames. Everyone seems to be drawn to this young girl, she is an enigma, she hasn’t spoken since her recovery and her melancholy air draws people to her like a flame draws the moth. They want to look after her, make her smile, but she remains aloof, unhappy and desperately attracted to the river that almost took her life.

The setting has a period feel although I’m not sure if an actual year was mentioned. References to Darwin are made and the story has a Dicken’s feel in terms of the style and feel. At times, there is a romantic, meandering, almost lyrical feel. The place evokes a bygone age of charm and simplicity and yet at other times this is countered by the darkness of human behaviour and the more seedy side of existence. I also loved the role that the Thames plays – at times twinkling innocently in spite of it’s deep and perilous currents, at other times shrouded in mist and mystery. It almost takes on the persona of another character, sometimes moody, sometimes playful but always a force to be reckoned with and never to be underestimated.

The writing is beautiful, the type of writing that you simply have to savour. This is not a book to be raced through although it is certainly a page turner. I was quite bewitched to be honest although at the same time I would say this is a slow burner and at times there was almost a point where I almost, almost, reached that stage where I wanted to move forward and stop dwelling on a certain point – thankfully the author always seemed to move on at just the right moment. However, be aware that this book definitely has the feel of an old style classic both in terms of the gentle pace and old fashioned sensibilities. Personally, it worked for me like a charm but I recognise that I have a love of tales of this nature where the setting and telling have less of a contemporary feel and more of a determination to spin a tale that lures you slowly and surely.

Overall, I loved this book and I don’t have any criticisms. My only caution to perspective readers would be that if you’re expecting a headlong rush through a mystery novel then this might not be the book for you. If you like the idea of a beautiful, adult fairytale, told in a desultory fashion that evokes bygone days where magic and miracles still seemed possible then what are you waiting for. An adult fairytales that manages to blend, history, mystery, folklore, religion and science and with all those things in the mix leaves you feeling ‘what if’.

I received a copy through Netgalley, courtesy of the publisher, for which my thanks. The above is my own opinion.

It’s midwinter in England, in the old Swan Inn on the banks of the Thames. Stories are being told by candlelight by the village locals. Suddenly, a man bursts through the doors, heavily beaten and holding what appears to be a doll. But when the villagers try to help him, they realise that he’s holding the body of a drowned girl. They lay her to rest in a room on her own but hours later – a miracle! – she stirs and seems to come back to life. So starts a tale of intrigue, deception and magic, heavily laden with folklore.

So far so good.

But when the entire book is based around who is the girl in an age when no-one could tell for sure, I felt like I was literally getting caught in the weeds.

Luckily, Once Upon A River is beautifully, magically written. The prose is lyrical, flowing, well… like a river. However, it also meanders about, with a huge cast of characters forming a number of slower moving tributaries that feed into the main narrative flow. The symbolism wasn’t lost on me but it took a while to understand. It also made the pace of the book s-l-o-w… really slow. Occasionally, the storyline was so stagnant I thought we’d veered off course into an oxbow lake. The gorgeous writing just about managed to pull me through the silt though.

The book is also incredibly atmospheric. I could literally see the characters (there’s pages and pages of descriptive text) even though they’re numerous and somewhat similar. Combined with the writing style this made the novel far more engaging but after a while, instead of gliding effortlessly through the prose I felt like I was drowning in it. I got somewhat swamped by the side stories and exhausted by the sense that I was treading water, waiting for the next thing to happen.

Oddly, the narrative picked up pace towards the end – to the point of feeling a little rushed – which I found quite jarring. I didn’t fully understand the ending (I sensed some kind of moral message but couldn’t quite decipher it) although I appreciated how the author tied all of the narrative threads together. I hated the idea that getting married and having a baby would make everything better though.

Overall, this was a very difficult book to review. I can completely see why some people (a lot of people) have given it five stars – it’s an easy book to immerse yourself in. However, I struggled with the slow pace and the lack of action. Whilst I quite enjoyed reading Once Upon A River, I didn’t love it – but I’m sure plenty of other people will.