Incredible. The scene is set and framed by smoke and fire. Heller makes it seem effortless in his creation of threat. I read this book quicker than I have many others. Highly recommend.

Due to a sudden, unexpected passing in the family a few years ago and another more recently and my subsequent (mental) health issues stemming from that, I was unable to download this book in time to review it before it was archived as I did not visit this site for several years after the bereavements. This meant I didn't read or venture onto netgalley for years as not only did it remind me of that person as they shared my passion for reading, but I also struggled to maintain interest in anything due to overwhelming depression. I was therefore unable to download this title in time and so I couldn't give a review as it wasn't successfully acquired before it was archived. The second issue that has happened with some of my other books is that I had them downloaded to one particular device and said device is now defunct, so I have no access to those books anymore, sadly.

This means I can't leave an accurate reflection of my feelings towards the book as I am unable to read it now and so I am leaving a message of explanation instead. I am now back to reading and reviewing full time as once considerable time had passed I have found that books have been helping me significantly in terms of my mindset and mental health - this was after having no interest in anything for quite a number of years after the passings. Anything requested and approved will be read and a review written and posted to Amazon (where I am a Hall of Famer & Top Reviewer), Goodreads (where I have several thousand friends and the same amount who follow my reviews) and Waterstones (or Barnes & Noble if the publisher is American based). Thank you for the opportunity and apologies for the inconvenience.

First I have to say how much I love the cover for the UK version of this book, it’s stunning and really drew me to wanting to read this book.

I love books like this, a fight for survival when you’re in the middle of nowhere with nobody other than yourself and your travel companions to get you out of there. And I love books set in the wilderness where I’m taken to a whole other world that I will likely never go to myself. So this book was already winning in my eyes.

Wynn and Jack are best friends who love spending time in the outdoors together, they have done so many times over the years they have been friends and so they know each other so well they barely need to speak as they navigate a dangerous river.

They had expected the rapids to be the risky part of their trip, but they were wrong and it quickly becomes clear that this trip will be one where they will have to fight to survive.

One thing that struck me as I read The River was how it read differently to many books, I kept thinking that I was reading a book written many years ago and then Wynn and Jack would suddenly talk about satellite phones and I was reminded that this book is set in the present and not the past.

The writing is very descriptive, I really felt as though I could see the river, hear the birds and smell the smoke as I read. The pace is slow at first and then suddenly, BAM, you’re sucked in and desperately reading to find out what was going to happen. The chapters are very long but I quite liked that and found that it fitted well with the story.

There were many things to like about The River by Peter Heller, it was a different read but one that felt so real and made so much sense. The author clearly has a vast amount of knowledge about rivers, camping and surviving in the wild and this enhances the readers experience when reading the book.

I really enjoyed this book and will definitely read more from the author.

Not only beautifully written and descriptive but hauntingly poignant. You could be mistaken for thinking the story of two guys going for a holiday in the wilderness would be staid and boring, well think again. Its tense, gripping edge of your seat kind of book. Think more along the likes of The River Wild and Deliverance. Yet it doesn't forget its main theme or what I thought of it being. That of two guys at one with not only their surroundings but of their own thoughts and feelings for each other. The theme of their friendship is a deep vein that throbs steadily through the book. The fear, stress pain and sorrow they suffer reaches off the pages and touches your heart and mind. The realism within the pages bring to life the sights and smells that the guys encounter. You could almost think yourself a passenger with them. Its clear the author has knowledge of kayaking as that helps with the authentic feel of the book. So if you a nail biting race against time to outrun not only man but nature, then this is the book for you. The aftermath of reading this will linger in your mind like the stench of the smoke lingered in the air as they ran the river, and only time will allow it to dissipate.

I really enjoyed this story and gave it a 4/5 or 8/10.

This is the first book that I've read by Peter Heller and if the rest of his work are as good as this, then I'm in for a treat with several books to his name to look forward to in the future.

This story tells the relationship between two men who formed a lasting friendship at college, bonding over a love of literature and all things outdoors. Setting off on an exciting expedition the two friends have no idea what fate has in store for them. How will they cope and will they survive, the dangers that nature and man has planned.

Peter Heller has a way of telling the story and making you think that you're there with them, he weaves the descriptive well with the narrative and creates the tension, danger and atmosphere that nature and man has combined together to make this a race for survival. This is very reminiscent of some of the wilderness style movies that I've seen in the past where man is pitted against nature. In my opinion it would make a great movie and the descriptions take you there and you can visualise the wilderness that the characters find themselves in.

Why not treat yourself to a copy and immerse yourself in the great outdoors.

One one level, The River is a highly suspenseful story of an intrepid adventure. On the other, it is a lyrical reflection on how, in both nature and life, brutality and beauty are inextricably linked. I enjoyed the latter more than the former.

The book was very successful in stripping back human nature to its barest survival instincts, still leaving room for love and friendship. The two friends, Jack and Wynn, who embark on their expedition on The River are described sparingly and sympathetically and I found myself rooting for them and turning the pages to find out their fate.

Some aspects of this book were not for me (the lengthy details of canoeing and fishing went over my head somewhat and I found myself skipping over them), though this was a matter of personal taste. I imagine this will appeal to lots of readers, especially those who love the great outdoors.

My thanks go to Orion Publishing group for a free e-galley in exchange for an honest review.

Superb tale of surviving a wilderness wild fire, where a canoe trip turns into a tense race against the elements and out of control individuals.

I’ve read Peter Heller’s excellent previous book Dog Stars, The River provides another character driven adventure in the US wilderness.

Highly recommended.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/review/R1YILIE2WT3JFC/ref=pe_1572281_66412651_cm_rv_eml_rv0_rv

This was a highly anticipated read for me. It seemed so unique and thrilling. However ultimately i was left disappointed. The plot was genius and something i have never read before and definitely something i would read more of. But, i found the writing to be ridiculously convoluted to the point where it was difficult to read. i enjoyed the characters but thought they could be fleshed out a lot more. I wanted something deeper, and something other than the endless inner monologues.
Overall it was a great plot but left a lot to be desired.

Without even having to read the biographical information, you can tell that Peter Heller has experience of outdoor activities: climbing, canoeing, fishing, camping, surviving in the wilds. It's not just that a love for nature that comes through in the writing, but an understanding of its rhythms, a respect for its power, its danger. That was evident in his most successful book to date The Dog Stars, a wonderfully refreshing humanist addition to the otherwise quite pessimistic post-apocalypse genre, focussing as it did on a Hemingway-esque exploration of man and nature, people in their surroundings, surviving, alert to danger; danger coming most often from other people.

You get a sense of similar unease very quickly in Heller's latest book, The River. Two friends, Jack and Wynn are on a canoeing trip along a Canadian river through a series of lakes that takes them out into Hudson Bay. The two young men share a love for the outdoor life, for self-sufficiency, but perhaps also because of some traumatic family experiences in their pasts they enjoy the remoteness from civilisation, a little pleasure that is increasingly hard to find. As such they haven't taken any phones with them. If anything happens, they're going to have to deal with it through their own initiative and skill. So there's an undercurrent there.

What is of immediate concern however is a large forest fire that is heading their way and could be with them in days, meaning that they have to get to a safe place, and the middle of a river, you might be surprised to discover, will not protect you from the flying embers and heat of a raging inferno that can jump from one shore to another. There's a different kind of unease however that Jack and Wynn experience however as they head for safety, an unease that comes with their encounters with a few other adventurers out on the river who they feel they ought to warn of the coming danger; a couple of loud-mouth drunks and a man and a woman who they don't see but can hear having a fight in a nearby camp.

Jack and Wynn don't hang around. They have developed a sense of where their might be trouble and are experienced and cautious canoeists. And trouble comes, but not from the wild. Or at least not initially, as that will inevitably be a problem they will encounter down the line. Heller knows the dangers out there in the wild and how quickly even a carefully managed expedition can spin out of control.

In a number of different ways The River then becomes a thriller, the two young men having to deal with a very human threat without truly understanding the nature of it, having to adapt and react quickly, the danger heightened and made all the more uncertain by the conditions of their environment. Being cut off from the rest of the world isn't just the usual crime twist, it's a vital component of Heller's exploration of how man reacts to life and death circumstances without having that safety net to fall back on, where one false move or one mistake can be fatal.

What Heller manages to do successfully in The River is bring all these elements together in a way that they feed into one another, informing and deepening the drama. The crime thriller element is fast moving and suspenseful, the looming threat of natural disaster on an incomprehensible scale adds another edge, but there's also time within this for the boys to reflect on their own lives, on troubles that they carry with them that could have a bearing on how they react to the immediate situation. Nature takes many forms, and it's not just the great wilds that Heller writes about so well, but the factors of life and nature that make us human; our relationships with families, friends and other people.

Jack and Wynn are two buddies getting back to nature, travelling along the Maskwa River in Canada. Apart from the odd fellow traveller, they are miles away from civilisation, so when the two run into a man who says his wife has gone missing, they wonder if it is the same couple they heard arguing the day before. Parts of the man's story don't add up so Jack and Wynn decide to find out what happened.

This a book with lots of detailed descriptions, in fact there were so many descriptions of fly fishing, I had to check I wasn't reading 'Fly Fishing' by J R Hartley (for those of you who are unfamiliar, it was an 80s TV advert in the UK). I enjoyed reading it for the most part, but I didn't feel as if I was on the edge of my seat, and the ending was a little anticlimactic. It was good but I feel it could have been better.

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers, Orion Publishing Group / W&N, for the opportunity to review an ARC.

Very atmospheric, gripping, descriptive thriller. It's very well written, has literary fiction quality to it. I really loved it.
A bit slow going than your usual domestic thriller, but I enjoyed it a lot.

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

An enjoyable read for me, very descriptive and lots of tension. It took me a little time to get into the book in the beginning but once I did, I really liked the descriptions of the river, its surrounds, and the sense of friendship, responsibility and "having each other's backs" between the two men as they try to make their way back to safety from the perils of the forest fire.

Jack and Wynn are old school friends making their way down the Maskwa River in Canada, what is supposed to be a leisurely 2 week adventure down river to the town of Wapahk soon becomes a fight for survival, against Mother Nature and other more sinister enemies...

With nature raging against them, they come across some shady characters and not least a woman very much in need, abandoned by her husband and left alone while the weather is turning..

What begins as quite a slowly paced book soon winds into a frantic break neck, intense action pack ride. This Book doesn’t let up.

Friendship, human attrition, bravery, and a will to survive the boys put it all on the line to save themselves.

The locations and descriptions of the river and surroundings are seriously stunning, you can picture yourself there on this beautiful river bombarding down the white rapids.

I liked the 2 main characters and the book really is solely on these guys, friends, doing their best to survive, of course they have fractions moments but in the end it’s all about surviving the perils in front of them.

The writing is great, detailed, descriptive and at times it can be an emotional tale bringing about a finale fitting of the adventure we have just been taken on by Peter Heller.

4 🔥🔥🔥🔥

College friends Jack and Wynn are canoeing the Maskwa River in Northern Canada. Wynn is the most experienced with whitewater, while Jack is an expert on wilderness survival and hunting; they don't anticipate problems. However, when they find themselves in the path of a forest fire and overhear a couple arguing in the middle of the night, they are unwillingly plunged into a life-or-death journey down the river.

This novel, the first I've read by Peter Heller, sits somewhere between literary fiction and thriller; the UK cover is somewhat misleading in depicting it as a pure white-knuckle ride. Heller spends some time establishing the landscape and the relationship between the two men, so the plot doesn't really kick in until we're about a third of the way through. However, this is a relatively short novel, so I didn't find this to be a problem; just don't expect this to be thrills from page one. Once The River gets going, it's properly gripping, and Heller's knowledge of the wilderness is evident. It reminded me of Erica Ferencik's equally engrossing The River at Night, with perhaps a greater touch of realism.

The 'literariness' of this novel is a little more questionable. Heller's writing is somewhat reminiscent of Charles Frazier, but less deliberately meditative. However, The River doesn't seem to have a great deal to say; the one enduring theme is the contrast between Wynn's idealism and Jack's cynicism, which is rather simplistically resolved. The novel also falls back on cliched gender roles; of the two women mentioned prominently in it, one, Jack's dead mother, appears only in flashbacks as a motivation for Jack's actions, while the other is a helpless victim of male violence. In short, I'd have liked this to either have gone full-on 'thriller', or to have had greater depth; although I enjoyed reading it, it sits a bit uneasily between the two.

I will cross-post this review to Amazon on the publication date.

I found this book quite gripping to start with, it was so descriptive which really ramped up the tension and made it genuinely atmospheric.

But I just felt a little underwhelmed with parts of it that left me feeling flat - there were odd parts to the story that I was unsure why they had been included and didn't fit into the story as a whole neatly.

The premise was good - 2 friends (Wynn and Jack) are canoeing down a river when they hear arguing between a man and woman and then the next day the man is alone stating the woman has disappeared. Wynn and Jack set out to find the woman and when they do so a new aspect to the story enters as they try and ascertain what happened to her - be it animal attack, the man she was with attacking her or is someone else lurking in the forest?

The tension definitely kept the rating up here, they are also battling to try and stay ahead of a raging wildfire which definitely adds a bit more drama and I really did not see the end playing out like it did which was another bonus!

My many thanks to Orion Publishing Group via NetGalley for providing me with this advanced reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

Superbly written with closely observed characters engaged in decision making we all struggle to figure out in less high- stake ways. With a fire raging, providing effective backdrop of tension ,thugs turn up , a woman is battered, shots fly ... with fatal results.. a shocker after the steady, quiet build up.

What an adventure!! Two boys who meet through a love of books and adventure. I loved them from the start. They want to go on the adventure of a lifetime and so head on a canoe down the long and winding Maskwa River in Canada.

It all starts well - they are prepared with food, tents and all the necessary equipment. These boys know what they are doing. It all starts off quite gentle and that is reflected in the gorgeous stunning scenery. It’s green, pleasant, calming. The water is rippling and the feeling of freedom stretches out before them with the river.

But then there’s news of wildfires. And they are restricted by where they can go. But that’s not the worst of it. The fire is not the thing they should be afraid of. Blimey it’s like they’ve been sailing along in the canoe and hit a rocky incline, a whirlpool and a hazardous bend al at once.

The sense of urgency and panic ramps up and the book jolts the reader along at the same speed as that pulsating river. I couldn’t have stopped reading if I’d wanted to. It was that realistic I almost felt seasick. You just know you’re miles from anywhere, the sat phone doesn’t work and where the hell are you going with these boys?


This is a riproaring experience of a novel. I really feel as if I’ve been in the heart of the rockies and that’s a river journey I’m not going to forget in a hurry. I got out alive but did the boys? Well, no spoilers here, but it’s a blast finding out!

Best friends Jack and Wynn are canoeing down the Maskwa River, a big adventure into the Canadian wilderness, when a wildfire starts licking at their heels. They go back to warn others, only to find the fire isn't their greatest threat.

The River was one of those books where I liked the sound of it before realising I'd read the author before. The Dog Stars made my top ten list in 2012 and I wasn't disappointed with Peter Heller's latest. I thought the fire might be a bigger part, but it's always in the background, herding them into the human danger ahead.

Jack lost his mother in a riding accident, but he never turned his back on the wilderness that took her. He recollects his loss and grief throughout the journey. Wynn is much simpler, kind and gentle, never wanting to assume the worst of people.

If you've not got much interest in the minutiae of wild camping and long-distance canoeing, this might not be the book for you. It reminded me of a YouTuber my partner's recently started watching and I think there's something in that desire to escape to the wild and live a simpler life for a few weeks.

The fire and the potential killer adds tension to the story, but it still takes time to take in the landscape. It isn't a fast-paced book, they go at the pace of the river, but that's fine. It spends time describing the landscape, and the experience of being in it.

Be prepared to cry at the end. I was not expecting to be moved by this, expecting more of an adventure story. Whilst the woman in the story is a victim, the two men are kind to her, treat her with the compassion one would want if your husband had just tried to kill you. They have zero patience with anyone wanting to harm her, not something you can take for granted in fictional survival scenarios.

This is hands down the best book I have read in a long time. It is beautifully written; I felt as though I was there on the river with them. I adored the two main characters, if you find yourself in peril, these are the two people you want with you! I found the ending absolutely heartbreaking, and it stayed with me even after finishing the book.

I enjoyed this book from the start. The writing was very good indeed and there was a very atmospheric feel straight away. Jack and Wynn in the wild on a canoe trip. They are in Canada and plan to canoe down the river to Hudson Bay. They have been "buddies" for sometime now and they seem to have a very easy relationship. This is to be a long trip that is a wilderness one and should respect the wilderness. As examples of the stripped down nature of the expedition they are taking no satellite phone nor major first aid kit. They plan to fish and live off the land and are carrying minimal extras - what could possibly go wrong?

The start of the expedition appears idyllic. However, despite their remoteness they realise early on that they are not the only ones on the river. While the other people appear a little strange to the boys their primary concern is probably what nature itself may throw at them.

Generally I found Jack and Wynn fairly convincing and well written characters. There are few other major players in this story so the fact that most of the other people didn't have much impact on me is not surprising. Nature itself is also a major part of the story and I thought the author used that very well indeed. At times the story was poetic and at other times bleakly so.

It's fair to say that all does not go well with this trip in the wild for the boys. I would really prefer that people find out just what happened for themselves so I'll give nothing away.

I really enjoyed reading this book. I loved this author's book, The Dog Stars, however this one was not quite at the same level to me. I was on the edge of my seat much of the time. That said I can't say I was completely convinced somehow. I do think it would make a great film script. Over 4 star I guess but not 5 for me.