A magical book that kept me enthralled. Perfect for reading curled up during the winter. I enjoyed this book thoroughly

Thank you for the chance to read this Netgalley.

I really liked this book, it’s not one I would’ve gone for usually but I read the description and I thought I’d give it a go.

A SPELLBINDING, MULTI-LAYERED MYSTERY SET IN THE 19TH CENTURY AROUND THE THAMES.

If you like folk tradition, a little bit of magic and myth then you will love this.

A magical tale of intrigue and mystery.
Set along the Thames in the 19th century, men women and families areally enjoying each others company when a strange man opens the door with a dead child in his arms.
Everyone is shocked but even more so after a few hours the child awakes and is alive.
How can this be?
Who is the man and what happened to this young girl?

What a marvellous magical, lyrical story that meanders, speeds up, gets lost in tributaries, crosses from shore to shore, just like the Thames, the river in the title.

It is set in mid-Victorian times, when science has tried to replace magic, and they co-exist uneasily.

On the winter solstice a man is injured and a drowned girl is found, then she lives.
A girl has been lost, is this the child?
Why does everybody feel a connection to her.
A farmer looks for his estranged son.

The stories of the large cast of characters interweave as they bring the mysteries of that night to a satisfying conclusion over the course of a year.
My only complaint is that the evil characters (and there are some) seem to have no redeeming traits, but there are such people around.

Otherwise, an amazing book.
Thanks to Netgalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for the opportunity to read this book.

To be honest the story is a little slow paced in parts, however that could just be me. A book of story telling, full of colourful characters. Not my usual genre, but i gave it a go and enjoyed most of it.

I was sent a copy of Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield to read and review by NetGalley.
This is a story book in the true sense of the word. I was completely hooked from the start, totally immersed in the tales of the river told and retold in the Swan Inn on the banks of the Thames. This novel is beautifully written, enchanting and also rather magical. The lives of the whole community are touched by the appearance of a little girl; who is she and who will claim her as their own? There are many twists and turns to the mystery, with an array of characters all bursting into life on the page. I loved it!

Once Upon A River is a meandering tale that is probably best described as magical realism, with a strong fairytale current flowing through it. I did enjoy this book, but I didn't love it. The undercurrents didn't quite transport me to a different world!

The writing is beautiful, but overall I think the book was just too long. Lovingly described, the river is indeed quite a presence in the story, but the dreaminess was too prolonged.

Magic and the material world converge in a spellbinding story.

1887: on the long, dark night of the Winter Solstice, a badly injured man stumbles into the Swan Inn on the banks of the River Thames carrying a dead child. The Swan Inn is a traditional hub of storytelling, the miracle of what subsequently occurs spreads rapidly and has a ripple effect which forever transforms the lives of the community. Innkeepers Margot and Joe Bliss and their teenage son Jonathan. Farmers Robert and Bess Armstrong and their adult son Robin. Nurse and midwife Rita Sunday, photographer Henry Daunt. Affluent married couple Anthony and Helena Vaughan, housemaid Lily White – all their fascinating stories flow like tributaries with often tragic undercurrents into the main body of the tale; their fates brought together and intertwined.

The captivating, ethereal quality of a fairy tale and a powerful depiction of the grim conditions of life in the nineteenth century meet at the confluence of this story, heightening its elements of magical realism. The harshness of life on the river is seamlessly juxtaposed with folk tales of water goblins; dead souls haunting the living; the otherworldly ferryman who steers those in trouble either to safety on the shore or to “another shore altogether”; and of course, the catalyst that is the Swan Inn miracle. In keeping with the ancient belief of water being the transformative element and the gateway to other worlds, the river itself is a living entity. Beautiful and lyrical poetic descriptions evoke the river’s moods, constantly in flux with the seasons and weather; ever-changing yet eternal.

The mysteries at the heart of the story are multi-layered and are unravelled gradually but compellingly, keeping the reader hooked throughout. While Once Upon a River is reminiscent at times of a nineteenth-century novel in its density and complexity (which is an excellent thing!), its breadth and depth encompass subjects which are strikingly modern. Issues of race, sex and class are depicted and dealt with sensitively and with subtlety. Brutal violence against women and children, nature versus nurture, the conflict of science and superstition, and heart-breaking loss and its devastating aftermath all wind their way through the book to moving and often gut-wrenching effect.

Wonderful writing, an enthralling story, absorbing sub-plots, thought-provoking themes, and a cast of characters who are as memorable as they are diverse, all converge to make Once Upon a River a terrific choice for readers looking for intelligent novels of substance. Highly recommended.

Arwen Evenstar

Breakaway Reviewers received a copy of the book to review

This is the first book I have read by this author and it was not the type of book I would normally have read. However, I thoroughly enjoyed everything about this book and would definitely recommend it to others. It is beautifully written with a style of prose that reflects the tale brilliantly. It begins with an unknown injured man walking into an inn on the banks of the Thames with a dead girl in his arms. This is where the mystery starts and continues until the end of the book when the story comes full circle and we learn exactly did happen on that fateful night. There is a large list of characters, some of whom I warmed to more than others but all of whom I felt were important to the tale. I became totally engrossed in the book and could not wait to see what happened next. The last few chapters built the tension incredibly well and it wasn't clear which way the book would end. There were also several questions from earlier in the book answered and we realised that everything was not quite as it seemed earlier on. I would definitely recommend this book to those who enjoy becoming fully engrossed in a book and its characters.

Many thanks to the publishers and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest and fair review.

‘A river no more begins at its source than a story begins with the first page.’

It’s a cold, dark night at the Swan Inn at Radcot, when a man bursts through the doors with a dead child in his arms. The man is tended to, unconscious and unable to give answers, and the child is lain aside. Until, she awakens. Now the only question is, who is she? As families fight for her, Setterfield takes you back through each characters past, up and down the Thames as the river becomes a character of its own, ruthless and reckless, dangerous and daring, until one year after the girl first appeared. Can the river shed light on who she is, and where she came from?

I totally didn’t realised this was by the same author of ‘The Thirteenth Tale’ when I requested it on NetGalley – it was only when I went to add it on Goodreads when I started reading it that it clicked. And I got really excited, because The Thirteenth Tale is such a clever telling of a story, and I’ve been wanting to reread it lately because I remember being entranced and so engrossed by it the first time around.

So, I was very excited going it. And that excitement only grew after the first few lines, paragraphs, pages. The opening of Once Upon a River is one of the best openings I think I’ve ever read. The voice of the narrator is so distinctive, so melodic and purposeful in what it’s telling you. I could honestly reread the beginning of this novel over and over again. In my eyes, it is perfect.

Unfortunately, that charm to the voice does die down slightly as the novel progresses. It’s still told beautifully, it is still captivating, and unique, but the quality of the first few chapters that is so amazing loses its shine a little bit. Like I said, it’s still good. It’s still beautiful. But the very beginning is just that little bit more.

One of the main focuses of Once Upon a River, apart from the mystery of the little girl, and the importance of the river itself, is the act of storytelling. It’s used a device within the book to pass information from one character to another, but it’s seen as an art, a skill, something you hone and practice and work at until Friday night at the Swan when you unleash the events of last week and captivate everyone in the building. The way that Setterfield brings it to the front of her own story is fascinating and beautiful, and is reminiscent of how she uses the stories of the author that is her main character in The Thirteenth Tale to further the story. She obviously has a way with words herself, but I adore how she brings stories into stories and highlights the importance of passing on tales.

Within Once Upon a River, there are multiple characters, each fighting for their families, and for this little girl to join their lives. Each character has their own in depth back story, each relevant to who they are now, and each adds intrigue and detail to the story at hand now.

I loved the mix of reality, of what you know is the logical answer, and the hint of magic or supernatural, whether it’s Quietly, Bess Armstrong’s eye, or the question of if the little girl was ever really dead or not. A book that is set strongly in the historical fiction category, while also tagged as ‘fantasy’ and ‘magical realism’, it makes you wonder whether you believe there are outside causes to these anomalies, or if there is some very easy answer waiting just around the corner.

I adored Once Upon a River. I can’t wait to re-read The Thirteenth Tale, check out Setterfields other book, and look out for what else she releases in future.

An interesting tale weaved through the eyes of several key characters, though a little slow at times.

Overall, I found this book reasonably well-written, but for me, a bit of dense read. Every so often I would have to put the book down because I didn't want to read any further. Not because of the story, but because of the prose.

I also found the way the book refers more or less obliquely to rape, in ways which appear to largely ignore its consequences and as essentially something that was more or less expected to happen to women, disturbing and bothersome, and not in a way that added to the experience of reading the book. It seems to be used as a way to show that a villain is a bad person, for example, and I am honestly tired of that particular trope.

The mix of scientific and supernatural also seemed a bit strange, a bit off, as if the author was trying a bit too hard to combine the two; it felt rather forced.

So while the author certainly sees to have researched the setting very well and certainly showed great skill at the craft of writing, the book did not gel for me into a whole, and never really became a book where I felt I had to continue reading it. I did finish it, and I don't regret it, but it's not a book I think I will recommend

We get it, the novel’s title is Once Upon a River. Jesus Christ.
Whilst the reality of the River Thames is one that characterises every major waterway in the United Kingdom - opaque, freezing and overflowing with rubbish - Diane Setterfield really tries to hammer home the point in this novel that it is, in fact, a magical entity that has a personality all of its own. Ebbing and flowing and all that; influencing the events that take place on its banks. At least, by how many references/descriptions of it in this book, that is what it certainly feels like she's aiming for - take them all out and this book would be a tenth of its size and filled with utter nothingness.

Introduction: A dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the Thames. The regulars are entertaining themselves by telling stories when the door bursts open on an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a little child. Hours later the dead girl stirs.


Is it a miracle?

Lovely atmospheric story dripping in melancholy. Everyone is a storyteller and the plot meanders just like the Thames. Characters weave into the book with their own back story. Beautifully written and observed. An enchanting story – perhaps the ending is a little disappointing but do not be put off. The writing is magic.

I absolutely adored Once Upon a River. Diane Setterfield can really spin a yarn – what an incredible gift for understated storytelling. Reading this book felt just as though I was sitting by the fire with an ale in the dead of winter, hundreds of years ago.

This is a story about stories and storytelling. About the joys of being the first to bring a new tale, of refining one over time, of embroidering a tired story from long ago. It’s also about the distress of being forced to tell a painful story over and over again.

I loved this passage, which sums up how every story is built:

"Something happens and then something else happens and then all sorts of other things happen, expected and unexpected, unusual and ordinary."

The narrative is mesmerising and I found it so difficult to put down. I’d love to see this book made into a movie – I could almost hear Cate Blanchett narrating it in a warm, deep and calm voice, just as she voiced Galadriel: the elven co-ruler of Lothlórien, in Lord of the Rings.

At the Swan Inn that winter, the story of the girl who died and then lived is told again and again, with many variations. The storytellers test out which bits of the story make sense, discarding and adding elements as they try to fill the gaps in the known story with explanations that might make sense. In this way, Setterfield explores the way in which we tell stories in an effort to make sense of the unfathomable.

And then there is the healing power of telling stories – a burden shared is a burden halved and all that. Robert Armstrong apologises to Rita Sunday after sharing his life story with her:

"Forgive me, these are things a man speaks of very infrequently and there is a certain – I don’t know quite what to call it… pleasure? Relief, at any rate, in unburdening oneself."

I highly recommend Once Upon A River. The language is wonderful, the narrative is surprising and the characters are unforgettable.

Although this book was beautifully written and had an interesting premise I found it to be incredibly slow and it didn’t engage me at all.

Beautifully written, some really interesting characters and wonderful description of the setting, everything that draws me into a book. Sadly, for some reason I found it difficult to engage with the story, very slow paced and at times I found it tedious. I have read and thoroughly enjoyed other Diane Setterfield books but this one was not for me.

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.