Slow burning and beautiful, Setterfield’s fairy tale historical mystery is not to be missed. Don’t expect sudden reveals or racing plot, but settle in and enjoy the gradual unfolding of the plot which centres around The Swan Inn on a fictional river Thames in an unspecified time. Beautiful prose that like so many aspects of the [plot, straddles the line between the magical and the mundane. There’s magic in everything if you know how to look. Really lovely.

The Swan Inn is a riverside pub full of tradition, a place where stories are told and retold on cold winter nights. The Swan is owned by Margot Ockwell, married to Joe Bliss - a champion storyteller - and they have raised twelve daughters, each named “Little Margot” by the patrons of the Inn.

The novel begins on the night of the winter solstice where this cosy pub gets shattered by a strange man, severely injured carrying a rag doll. The ragdoll turns out to be a little girl, dead on arrival. Or is she?

This strange little girl seems to miraculously come back to life and to add fuel to the gossip fires, it looks like she is claimed by two different families as their lost daughter.

The Vaughn’s lost their little girl 2 years ago and in this time, Mrs Vaughn has slowly died every day. Her husband is overjoyed at the spark that the little girl brings back into his wife’s eyes and will do anything to keep it that way.

And then there is Robin Armstrong, the wayward son of Robert and Bess Armstrong. He seems to not care about this little girl but wants to claim her none the less. Robert and Bess are not blind to their son’s faults. Especially Bess with her weird eye she keeps hidden under an eyepatch because once she looks at you with that odd eye she sees right into your soul.

There is a mystery to be solved, some hard truths to uncover and in the centre of everything is a little girl lost, a nurse and a photographer, and some really smart pigs.

The story has an unhurried meandering quality to it, sprinkled very lightly with magical realism. This is a character driven story that asks you to slow down a little, so you can fall under its spell.

Netgalley ARC: Expected UK publish date 19 January 2019

I was a big fan of this author already but am even bigger one after reading this!

I think we need more female Gothic fiction so this tale of a mysterious drowned girl who wakes from the dead to become the much loved subject of local stories was absolutely my style.

I love being taken on a slow journey never knowing who you're going to meet, creeping into the story with no gory shocks and just a splash of the supernatural. And Setterfield does this kind of magical saga SO well....

There were times when I felt this particular tale had sprawled a little too far but I didn't need to worry, like the storytellers described in the book the author kept drawing me in further. Just like river around which the story weaves you need to find the ebb and flow and just go along with it.

This is an absolutely spellbinding tale! It is the perfect combination of history and romance told in gorgeous prose that evokes the gothic feel of Victorian England with dashes or magic and science it’s the perfect read for a long winter night. I LOVED it!

This book is extraordinary. It's so different from anything I've read lately. There are quite a number of characters in the story but the main one is the river itself, the Thames. It was no surprise to learn that the author lives by the Thames, near Oxford, because this novel is infused with love and respect for the river.

The premise of the story is that a little girl is rescued from the river. She appears to be drowned and then comes back to life. But she doesn't speak and it's not clear who she belongs to - there are at least three possibilities. The narrative explores the stories behind the individuals whose lives are touched by this event. We do eventually find out what happened, although there is a veil of mystery, myth and possibly magic over it all. I actually enjoyed the second half of the book better than the first. It took some time for me to remember who the different characters were and the pace seemed to slow, before picking up again later on. I was confused as to how the people, events and locations were connected, but I just went with the flow (pun intended) and sure enough it made more sense the more I read.

There was a hint of Thomas Hardy in the rural and small town settings, the pub environment, the narrator's confident ownership of the story and the theme of uncertain identities. I also detected hints of Sarah Perry and Philip Pullman.

I liked the focus on storytelling. Not only is Diane Setterfield telling this story to us, the characters are telling stories to each other, and the one we have just read will be passed along until the tellers have been forgotten but the story will live on.

In summary this is a wonderful, moving and atmospheric novel which is worth diving into (another pun... sorry).

Once Upon A River will be published on 17th January 2019. Thank you to Transworld Publishers for an ARC via NetGalley.

[review to be published 2nd Dec 2018 on my blog]

With thanks to netgalley and the publisher for the chance to read in exchange for an honest review.
I started this with a few spare minutes and I was gripped, I didn’t want to put the book down. Who was the man with the little girl and why did he turn up at the Swan? The prose in this book flows, swirls and eddys just like the river that stands at the base of the story. It is a beautiful, poetic telling of a tale. A real mystery around who the little girl belongs to and the unfolding of events. As in her other writing the gothic theme runs strong and the mystery of the ghostly girl is unfolded to an almost satisfactory conclusion.

Set in the 19th century, Once Upon A River, crosses genres: magical, folklore, fairytale with supernatural elements. A whimsical tale set amongst a community on the banks of the River Thames. Where folk sit and relate stories, often embellished as the ale flows. What then are they to make of an event that occurs on the winter solstice when a stranger staggers into the Swan Tavern carrying a child. A young girl who, to all outward appearances, is dead. The local nurse Rita takes the child in her arms and pronounces this to be so. The locals are shocked and dismayed when the child recovers from her apparent death. Who is she? Had she not drowned when the stranger discovered her? Is she the long lost child of the Vaughans or the Armstrongs? This is the meat of the story that follows several characters in their quest to establish the truth.

Enjoyable enough but at times it lost pace, became repetitive and dragged. A pity. It is well written with good character development. I wish I had enjoyed it more.

My thanks to Random House UK, Transworld and NetGalley for my ARC.

This is such a beautifully written book.

You are immediately drawn into a world of storytelling centred on the River Thames and its nearby dwellers. The part folklore, part fantasy, part mystery is told through the lives of the characters whose existence are all dependent on the river in different ways but linked together by an event, and in particular a person, that we are introduced to right at the beginning.

The interweaving of the naivety based mysteries, appropriate to the time that the book is set in, with elements of the supernatural is carried out with elegance. The story simply works. Diane Setterfield does an amazing job guiding us through the mystery of the child that was dead and then wasn’t. In a world where story telling is held with high esteem, Diane is head and shoulders above anyone else.

Thank you NetGalley and Random House UK for a review copy.

I was initially very keen to read this book as I had loved Diane Setterfield’s previous work. However, I found this just wasn’t for me. It is beautifully written and has a very wistful, fairytale air but it moved very slowly and unfortunately it couldn’t sustain my interest. I do think it’s a book which others - with perhaps more patience than I have - will enjoy. I suspect it’s a book best read in long chunks - something which I don’t currently have the time for. .

A story full of drama, a MUST for a T.V. adaptation. It has everything. It is a story of love and loss, of grief and of longing, yet a story tinged with humour. In fact storytelling is an essential element, with its tales of myth and magic, of humour and of mystery. A 19th century Chaucerian tale.
Once Upon a River is peopled with layers of strongly penned characters who show the best and worst of humankind.
The omnipresent River, in all its moods; always capricious, sometimes spiteful, is intrinsic to the lives of rich and poor who live or exist in the riverside villages.
This novel has so many layers, each expertly dissected, I had to slow down my reading as I did not want it to end. At the end of the year, I expect to find it on the list of the best Books to Read in 2019.

On a cold winter night by the Thames an injured man carries a drowned child into an Inn. The Inn, The Swan, is renowned for its storytelling landlord and its warm welcome. The Ockwell family have run it for years, there are regulars who have enjoyed their hospitality and old Joe's stories for decades. The night the drowned child makes her appearance will affect them all in some way, along with many more people we don't meet until later in the tale. What follows the rescue of the child is a fantastic tale of loss and love, and of the power belief has to play in all our lives - however level-headed we may think we are.

There is an element of the detective story to this book - it does after all begin with an enormous mystery - who is the child who appears to be drowned, and who is the man - also half dead - who fished her from the river? Another novel could have taken this tale alone and been a perfectly good read, but not this one. In 'Once Upon a River' one mystery is not enough; instead we are presented with many, all twined about each other like weeds by the river bank.

This is a novel of many stories then, and a huge cast of characters to go with them. Like the river itself the stories eddy like water, they never settle, we think we have grasped the narrative, second guessed the author...and then it's gone, in a completely different direction. Despite my usual habit of reading everything pretty quickly, this novel wouldn't let me. Somehow Diane Setterfield has harnessed the spirit of the river, the pace of flowing water dictating the rate at which I read it. The winter chapters - when the drowned child is first discovered - contain urgency, like the rushing water of winter. By rainy mid-summer the pace is languid and dreamy, yet gripping as we come closer to the end of the tale.

Although filled with older folk traditions; folktale, myths and magic - a story about the dragons of Cricklade is a fascinating aside - we're also shown the new ways of understanding (Once Upon a River is set in the latter half of the 19th Century, Darwin had published On The Origin of Species, medical science was making great advances). Rita Sunday - a nurse trained by nuns at the foundling hospital she was brought up in - is methodical. Rita tries to find rational explanation for the events unfolding around her by experimentation and reading. She, like Mr Armstrong - a local well to do farmer - is a character who sits somehow simultaneously within and outside the story. Despite Mr Armstrong's loving family and position he is, we find out, a black man in white Victorian society, and must carry himself carefully in order to gain trust and find his way past hostility. Rita is an independent, single woman - a position she is fiercely protective of. Though they will both be changed by the end, these two characters more than any - I felt - push the story along; they are its backbone, or maybe its river bed.

It is a book about many kinds of stories. Those that are told out of love, or the need for reassurance, those told allowing people to hide from pain - there is pain in this book; the Vaughans have lost a daughter, and husband and wife are estranged. The Ockwells, who own the Inn, know Joe will not live for much longer. There are stories told from a place of hate and deceit, designed to hold a person in thrall - Lily White grieves for a lost sister and lives in abject fear of something monstrous. We also encounter other myths - like that of Quietly the Ferryman, who will rescue you from the river, or not, depending on if it's your time to go.

I can't really do this novel justice here. It is a dream of a book in which older ways of understanding weave together with the later 19th Century worlds of science and rationality. Like our dreams as we wake and try to grasp them, you will find yourself questioning what is real to its cast of characters, and what is myth or magic. It is a novel about love and loss, and about moving on - as the river always does.

My thanks to Net Galley and Random House/Transworld Digital for giving me the opportunity to read ONCE UPON A RIVER.
This elegantly and beautifully written novel is set in the 1800's in a small village situated on the Thames. Nothing much happens in the village, a man usually works the land either for himself or others, then spends his wages in the inns dotted along the riverbank. The only entertainment they have is telling each other stories, usually rumour or an elaborated truth that keeps them occupied for hours and hours, until one fateful evening. An injured man staggers into The Swan owned by Margot and her ailing husband, Joe, carrying what first appears to be a doll, but it in fact a dead child he found floating in the river. The man is cared for and the girl's body placed outside in a cold room where Rita, the local nurse attends to her. Rita is a wonderful character, the mainstay of the little community. On returning to the inn, she feels unsettled that the little girl is left on her own even though she has passed. She returns to the cold room, where her instinct makes her feel again for the girls pulse...

A wonderful story with a thoughtful premise interlaced with magical realism. Every human emotion is explored here, from the suspension of disbelief to the grief of parents coming to terms with the kidnapping of their child and her subsequent loss. There are characters to fall in love with here, from Jonathan, Margot and Joe's son with Down's Syndrome, to Robert Armstrong, a strong, honest and hardworking man born of an earl and a girl of black heritage. There were times when I had to leave the story, but I went back to The Swan and the story of the girl who came back to life as soon as time would allow. Recommended.

This is story-telling at its finest. Once Upon a River is a gorgeous historical fairy-tale intertwined with mystery, hovering over the line between life as we know it and magical realism. Set in a small English village along the banks of the Thames, this story flows seamlessly like the river itself.

Setterfield’s story takes place in an ordinary English village where the only adventures that take place are in the stories spread among the townspeople. At The Swan pub, all the regulars are swapping their stories and unwinding after a day’s work during the evening of the winter’s solstice. Everything is as normal when something miraculous happens. An injured man bursts into The Swan with a doll-like figure draped over his arms. Everyone is fussing over the wounded man when they realise, the figure he brought in is a young dead girl. A girl who has just come back to life. The townspeople are quick to concoct their own theories and stories, attempting to unscramble the mystery over how she came back alive and figure out the child’s identity. Is she the grandchild of Mr Armstrong? Is there any chance she could be Lily White’s little sister? Or, perhaps she is the daughter of the Vaughans who went missing two years prior to the night’s events? However, the girl doesn’t speak. She merely looks out towards the river longing for something down its waterway. This introduction alone was another to sweep me into this book’s grip.

This is a story rife with compelling, likeable characters. Setterfield has created a community in which we feel a part of after just a few chapters. Each of them, as ordinary as they may seem in their working-class village, have dark secrets and pasts that will inevitably come back to discomfit them. It is through the unveiling of their past that the plot slowly unravels, even the most minutiae of details having significance to the plot’s climax.

It is the magical realism that makes this story so captivating. The line between reality and the supernatural fissures as folklore and superstition play into the characters’ everyday lives. Tales of ghosts, the supernatural mystery of the girl and fortune-telling spread among the town like wildfire, the villagers not knowing what to believe. Can a young girl really come back alive?

Most importantly, this is a book about story-telling. Setterfield explores its power as folklore finds itself embedded in each of the characters’ individual stories. The young girl is just one mystery which opens the window to a story teeming with various plots, background history and twists which will keep you guessing until the end.

This is an enchanting tale with a timeless quality in which every intricate detail is significant. It is an atmospheric, character-driven novel where magic can be found in the mundane. Savour this story. Absorb every meticulous detail. Let it entrance you. I couldn’t recommend this epic fairy-tale more and I can’t wait to read more by Setterfield. This is how you tell a story.

Thank you Atria Books and NetGalley for providing me with an eArc in exchange for an honest review!

This is a beautiful story. It's a genre-crosser: something of a historical mystery told like a fairy tale with magical realism. Everything straddles the line between reality and the supernatural, and sometimes it steps over into the fantastical, which might be surprising for fans of Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale.

I think it works really well, though. I should point out that the story is very slow burn and that's how the whole book unfolds - there's no "aha!" moment when the pace suddenly starts racing. It's a gentle, often sad, story of the magic in the mundane, and the normal in the seemingly miraculous.

Setterfield sets the tale along the banks of a fictional River Thames in an unspecified time that feels a hundred years or so before ours. True to our own history, this time is rife with superstition and folklore, tales of ghosts and fortune-telling. This allows for some uncertainty over what is supernatural and what exists in the minds of superstitious people. Does Bess really have the ability to look into someone's soul and see their true self, or is she just a woman adept at reading people?

I think that's what makes this story so thrilling. The line between our reality and the possibility of the supernatural is a fine one. I love fairy tales that open your eyes to the many "magical" things in our own world.

The story follows many characters and is largely centred around an inn called The Swan. One night, an injured man stumbles into the inn carrying a dead child. A child who sometime later is alive. Not only is this a mystery in itself, but so is the child's identity. Where did she come from? Could she be the missing daughter of the Vaughans who disappeared two years earlier? Could she be the grandchild of Mr Armstrong? The child in question does not speak a word.

As with The Thirteenth Tale, Setterfield really emphasizes the power of stories to shape people. The lore believed by these characters plays into their everyday lives, defining them. They are all so well-drawn, living seemingly simple working class lives, but hiding dark secrets and traumas that will, of course, come back to haunt them. Perhaps literally.

This is a gorgeous fairy tale, woven with everything that gives fairy tales their timeless quality. It is a quieter, more grounded in reality version of Katherine Arden or Naomi Novik. The feel reminds me somewhat of 2012's The Snow Child, but with a very different setting and a bigger cast of characters.

Fans of quiet fairy tales about people and (maybe) magic should love this.

In the small village of Radcott, inns dot the banks of the river. There are inns for jokes and merriment, where men and women go for laughter and fun; inns for music, for fighting, for quiet contemplation. Inside all, good company and deep drinks can soothe sorrow and ease weary bones. But only at The Swan, an ancient family-run inn, can there be found the gift of storytelling. There, tales of faries, folklore, myths and magic are exchanged, captivating listeners in their seats. Small details are often changed - a place, a person, a piece of the puzzle altered to keep ears open and hearts beating but the true facts are never touched. Stories fill every corner of The Swan, drawing back locals time and again and enchanting newcomers. At the helm is Margot and her ailing husband Joe, who serve their guests with warmth on a chilly day and the best of stories to send them off on their travels.









One wet night a man struggles through the door, clinging to life as he holds the body of a drowned girl. All eyes turn to him and all of a sudden the tales they tell so often are forgotten for one is unfurling around them. Injured and on the cusp of death, the locals help the poor man and patch him back up. It will take time for him to heal fully but he will survive. The same cannot be said for the girl he arrived with. Her lifeless body is moved respectfully, all attention then taken up with the man's care. When nurse, Miss Sunday, goes to examine the child's body, she meets a shocking discovery. The girl is alive.

The locals try to guess at what tragedy must have befallen the two newcomers but arrive back where they started none the wiser. The biggest puzzle - one they can't puzzle out - is the mystery surrounding the girl. Dead one moment, alive the next. An impossibility. Something belonging to fiction, a twist taken from one of their very own tales. But it is more than that. And the mystery will only thicken and grow as time goes on. On everyone's lips, are the words, "Something is coming!"







Once Upon a River has a big cast of characters, all of who are distinct and memorable for different reasons. The author portrays them exquisitely, drawing the reader into their innermost thoughts and feelings. Love, loss, hope, fear, grief all tussle inside the characters' lives and the emotion jumps from the page and into the palm of the reader.









I'm slightly embarrassed to admit that this is the first book I've read by Diane Setterfield. I've heard so many wonderful things about her books, in particular The Thirteenth Tale so before I began Once Upon a River, I had big expectations, and they were all surpassed. The author's writing is imbued with magic - the magic to draw the reader in and the power to keep them firmly in her grasp till the end. I loved everything about this book. Really looking forward to diving into her other books!





Exquisite. Powerful. Magical.

Just the right amount of truth amongst the storytelling and a mystery to be solved set in Victorian England. Villains and angels with the addition of a lesson iin the development of early photography . A seriously engaging read .

Once Upon A River by Diane Setterfield is lyrical, whimsical, and just a little bit magical. Set on the banks of the Thames, this book opens on a dark winter’s night, when a mysterious stranger walks into a popular tavern, holding a child in his arms. The child appears to be dead, but suddenly opens her eyes. Where did she come from? How is she alive? Where does she belong? The book follows several different characters as they process the events of that dark night. This story was enjoyable, though I feel like the pace dragged in places. The writing, particularly the descriptiveness, is elegant and engaging, and I overall enjoyed this story.

This book ebbs and flows beautifully like the river within it, sometimes meandering and sometimes quickly. It brings to mind old classics yet with a fresh new storyline. I found the book compelling yet read it slowly and enjoyed taking the time to contemplate the twists and turns within. It was missing the fast pace of a modern storyline, yet had a magic of it's own, like an old folktale. I took great pleasure in this story, it reminded me of the kind of book I would read as a child. I would definitely reccomend it for anyone looking for a touch of nostalgia or those who like a story that takes time to draw you in and carry you along with it.

First perplexed then confused, the beginning of this story was unlike anything previously read leaving an inability to become involved in the storyline. Then awareness, like a thunderbolt struck and suddenly all was clear. In the style of a Thomas Hardy, the reader must immerse themselves into the period detail and folklore of past times. People living off the land when the very little leisure time available is spent at the local inn and entertainment is stories told to each other around the roaring coal fire. Mysteries and bizarre occurrences are explained by beliefs related to the seasons, the tides and the moon. And so, in the style and content of a brilliant fairy story from long ago when every story commenced with Once upon a Time I became immersed in a book that I was unable to put down. Back into 19 th and early 20 century England where all medical care was handled by a local woman. The parson and the church lead the community and justice delivered by the local villagers. And so the mystery of a kidnapped infant. The finding of a child in the river drowned and then reborn. The happenings of a small community where good and evil live side by side each making their own mark on the world they live in. The havoc created and the goodness that like any fairy story can be discovered in the blackest of events. Excellent research, good period detail and intricate multi faceted characterisation and storylines enthralled until like any fairy story The End came giving the reader clarity and an ending worthy of the book. Loved it.

A gently flowing fairy tale, collecting story strands as it meanders through the interwoven lives of a riverside village. What starts as the story of a rescued child, miraculously brought back to life after drowning in the Thames, develops into the mystery of three missing girls and their families, with a wonderful cast of supporting characters. The lyrical prose, historical touches and other-worldly feel made it a joy to read.