I was totally gripped by this wonderful book. The river is the main character, a living and ever present being on which both life and death depend. The community is close, gathering in groups to tell stories and exchange gossip, with myths and legends filling their heads. Something happens to set them into a fever of speculation, bringing some together and others into their own painful recollections of past deeds. The writing is poetical and brings to mind Under Milkwood, with the characters drawn in full technicolour. It is both poignant and funny, and totally gripping even the parts which we as readers choose to believe or not. The mystery is in our own imaginations.

A marvelous tale from a masterful storyteller! Wonderfully atmospheric, with the mighty Thames the central character, calm and peaceful on a Summer's day but capable of death and destruction when in full flood.

The tale begins sometime around the 1850s in an ancient Inn on the banks of the river, where people go to tell and listen to stories. One night they are abruptly interrupted when a man staggers in and collapses. In his arms, a waxen child, a little girl, who appears to be quite dead but miraculously comes back to life. The news travels fast and soon three claimants believe the girl is their missing child. So who is she - the girl who's mother committed suicide after supposedly drowning her child, or the little sister lost many years ago or the child kidnapped two years ago and now returned? Or is she something else altogether, a being from the legends of the river?

Each of these stories will be explored as the people who were there on that fateful night go about their lives. There are some wonderful characters, not least Rita the nurse, who loves children but is too afraid of childbirth to have any herself, Henry Daunt, the photographer with his wonderful houseboat fitted with a darkroom, who wants to photograph and document every facet of the river and its people and gentle Robert Armstrong who loves his family and children and also his pigs. There were many minor characters who were also lovingly crafted and memorable. With it's lovely writing and gentle storytelling this is a book that draws you in to a time of slower pace and a belief in myths and magic.

When I started this book, it gripped me from the first 5 pages. It had such an intriguing start, and I kept turning the pages. Setterfield's writing is beautiful, no doubt. However, I was missing 2 main things in the book. One is a bit more dynamic plot, as it was too slow at times. And I enjoy slow moving literary fictions, but then I'd rather it's compensated with good character development. That was another thing missing in my opinion in this book. There were lots of characters and they could be really interesting, but there was not much development on any of them properly.
Regardless, it was a good literary fiction with mystery element in it. There are many separate stories that connect, and this sort of book can be only written by a skilful writer. Setterfield is a very good story teller.
I just wished it was a tad shorter, pace was a bit better and more character development.

Thanks a lot to NetGalley and the publisher for granting an access to this copy in exchange for an honest review.

The book begins with an injured stranger arriving at the Swan Inn with a body of a young child. Who are they ? This then becomes the sole topic of conversation between the regulars of the Inn, and the events become a story, one to be shared growing more marvellous with each retelling.

The characters are all so well written, encompassing human nature in all its glory. The river Thames is described as a character itself with power and magic at its core and the writer uses quite a few watery terms in her descriptions of characters too.

Although this is set in a time of scientific discovery, anything that cannot be immediately explained is deemed magical or supernatural and this makes for a wonderfully creative story. The final chapters are breathtaking and moving and comes to a satisfying end. I loved it and can see this being a must read.

I would like to thank the Author/the Publishers/NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book in exchange for a fair and honest review

Its the winter Solstice and The Swan Pub in Buscot is full of regulars who love to tell stories when a stranger stumbles in carrying the body of a young girl. They all believe the girl to be dead and stories begin to develop on who the two are and what happened to them on that night.
This is a long tale of attempting to tell a story without actually telling the story which makes it very repetitive and, to be honest a hard slog to read. There are numerous characters involved at the beginning who don't have any relevance to the story and it is only about half way through that these are dwindled down to the main ones.
No surprise in that the full story is laid out in the last couple of chapters and a little disappointing. A shame as the author could have made so much more out of it without the failed attempts at keeping the reader in suspense.

The opening to this book didn't really grab me and, with Christmas approaching, I put it down and didn't pick it up again for over a week. But when I did, the story enveloped me and I was totally lost in it until I was finished the next day.

The author delivers many possibilities to the reader, who remains just as confused as the characters for most of the book, and it is this which draws you in so completely. The changing and developing relationships which are described, the moments of beauty and of horror, and the continued mystery of the little girl are carefully weaved and come across wonderfully.

I enjoyed this book and will be talking about it in my Balancing the Books video for December. Thanks for the galley!

I could not get into this book at all. I didn't identify with the characters or the story. I hate not finishing a book but this one defeated me. Sorry

Another intriguing read from this great author. A real sense of mystery and foreboding in places, but there are some great characters .. there is an excellent sense of community with the patrons in the public house. and i did get a bit it confused, as there are so many characters, but persevered and was well rewarded. Every book Dianne writes has this real darkness about it, but they are so very different from each other..

Good old-fashioned storytelling at its best. Like the Thames, the story twists and turns as it reveals and explores the lives of a host of characters. An enjoyable read.

An unusual and mysterious story. From its start, it cast itsspell and took me into its depths.
As the tale spun on, it kept its secret and l wondered if I’d ever be privy to what lay at it’s heart.
Each character wove a story and they all revolved around the river.
There is always something hypnotic about a body of water and so it was with this story. I was introduced to many lives before the river finally gave up its secrets.
A beautiful, mysterious and bewitching tale.

This is the story of a number of families who lived by the river Thames in the 19th century. It centres upon the fate of a child rescued from the river, apparently drowned, who seems to come back to life. Various people think they know who she is but nobody can prove it, and the child herself has lost the power of speech. This story is fascinating, atmospheric, and has the feel of myth or legend about it. The characters and their lives are skilfully interwoven. I found it almost impossible to put down and I heartily recommend it.

An unusual tale of ghosts and mystery. Primarily revolving around a Swan Inn on the Thames where a dead or maybe not dead child is brought in. Is the child Alice who disappeared a few days before, Amelia who was kidnapped 2 years previous or Ann who was murdered several years ago? As the inn is popular with storytelling, the author has written the book as though she was verbally telling the story, often teasing the reader by digressing away from the main story. A very enjoyable read.

I thoroughly enjoyed this, more so even than The Thirteenth Tale. The setting, the characters, the story all drew me in and I loved every moment of this book.

An interesting story, a good story, which winds and meanders like the river it is set upon. The people, their ways and their lives are all laid before us. A child who appears to be dead comes back to life and enlivens the people in the area, changes lives and then moves on.

A beautifully written, magical tale as meandering as the river from which the story arises. An absolutely wonderful book.

Firstly I want to thank the publishers for my free copy via Netgalley.

I didn't know what to expect from this book, the basis for my interest being rooted in the beautiful book design and that the story was based in the nineteenth century. What I made was a pleasant discovery - elegant writing that led me from place to place easily, from character to situation with anticipation and from my 21st century reading chair to the Swan Inn with stylistic prose.

The story is set in the Swan Inn where the man of the house is a raconteur of some notoriety when a man stumbles in with a drowned girl in his arms and promptly passes out from his injuries.

In the chapter called "Tributaries" the author gives such a winding description of the river it entices you along its banks as if you were blown across the top of the water like an iridescent dragonfly, with transparent wings conspicuous in their agility. This chapter is indicative of the writing throughout and I was overwhelmed by the literary nature of the tale.

Our characters are laid out for us like diagrams with spaces in between for the imagination to complete - imaginings of their daily lives, the controlled narrative of their life stories that they are compelled to follow - Inn keeper, gravel-digger, ferryman and the like.

There is no doubt this is an old fashioned story-telling with ingenious colourful ramblings, twists and turns and the fundamental mystery of the drowned girl brought back to life.

Highly recommend. Thanks again to Netgalley and the publishers Doubleday for my free ARC.

The River Thames flows through this tale weaving together characters, settings and plot points. Beautifully written in story-telling style, magic and mystery sit side by side at the heart of this novel. The Thames, like the mythological Styx, forms a shifting boundary between life and death. In the end, death as the ultimate mystery remains unsolved, but the human psyche is navigable to its very depths. Set at the time of Darwin, the dawn of psychology and accessible photography, what had been intangible came within our reach and what had seemed magical became explainable - and so it is with this story.
Thanks go to the publishers and Netgalley for my ARC. Having started it, I loved it so much that I went out and bought my own copy to keep - now there's a wholehearted and unreserved recommendation!

During a dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the Thames, an injured man with a dead child are brought in from the river. The local healer is brought in and somehow, the dead child comes back to life.

This story had a poetic quality to the prose in the beginning redolent of a classic fairytale, yet the plot is totally original. I have to admit I wasn't sure what was going on for most of it. Is the child supernatural? Several people want to claim her, thinking it's a daughter or sister they lost. Perhaps an orphan child they might adopt. Somehow her features seem to appear familiar to all of them and each wants to take responsibility for her.

Eventually, towards the end, all is revealed and things begin to make sense, apart from the part that really is supernatural. It's a mystery story that moves at a slow pace, reflecting the effects of a slow moving river on the community that lives within the flood plain of its banks.

The only fast action is towards the end. This is one for the patient reader, and for those who like to spend most of the book working out the answer to a puzzling situation.

I DNFED this at 28%. I don’t mind magical but this weird blend of magical realism but maybe it is fantasy, yet we are not sure, well, it just did not work for me. I can understand that a lot of readers would like the meandering style of this narrative - oddly very much like the river described about 10% in that did not seem to have any set direction but somehow headed east. A case of “the right book for the wrong person” or “the wrong book for this reader”.