I had heard this was similar to Where the Crawdads Sing, which I loved, so I was keen to read it. It does have a similar 'feel' about it, but that's where the similarities end. I enjoyed it just as much.

The first half is a slow burn read but entertaining. The second half moved at a faster pace. I found the letters quite sad and moving. My heart ached.

If you enjoy a steady-paced read, you will love this.

I have nothing but love for this book. It is so beautifully written. I havent been this excited about a debut novel since 2021. The title 'Go as a river' and the wonderful meaning behind it, the way it describes the journey of Victoria as she comes of age is beautiful. The way the story is structured twists and turns like a river too.

The storyline covers so many emotions and the characters are so wonderfully drawn out for us. He characterisation of Torie is masterful. There are parts of the book which make for heavy reading but Shelley handles the topics well. I really struggle to believe this is a debut novel, because the writing is so good. I will wholeheartedly reccomend this to anyone, and it's probably one of only 3 books I've read that I will literally tell anyone who will listen to me that they must read.

Thank you to Netgalley and Doubleday for an ARC in exchange for am unbiased review.

Go As a River
by Shelley Read

I need to be in a very specific mood to get the most from tear-jerkers, and luckily this turned out to be the right book at the right time for me. Packed with wistfulness and nostalgia it is being marketed as the next "Where the Crawdads Sing" and "The Light between Oceans" and it is absolutely a decent comp for both of these stories.

The writing is nothing short of stunning, full of lush description, emotion and a tightly structured narrative arc. It's a while since I felt my heart go out to a character in the way that Victoria captured me. I was especially moved by the thoughts and insights surrounding motherhood, endurance, commitment. With perfect pacing this debut author picked me up and swept me away, and managed to squeeze a few tears from this normally reticent and stoic reader, and that's saying something.

I love the Colorado setting, the mountains and rivers, the wildness, the passages that are rich with flora and fauna of the location. I predict that this will be a hugh summer hit. I'm struggling to think of anything that didn't work for me. It has to be five glorious stars.

Publication date: 13th April 2023
Thanks to #netgalley and #randomhouseuk for the ARC

A young woman living in Colorado in the 1950s meets a young man by chance that will change her life forever.

T’orienta is young, bold and largely the housekeeper to her widowed father, drunken brother and crippled uncle. Meeting Willson Moon transforms her empty life but on the basis of his Indian heritage he is totally unwelcome in their small town community. If T’orienta continues to see him it will have to be in secret.

With rural town life brilliantly captured this is both a heartbreaking and life affirming novel in equal measure. A real story to remember .

What a beautiful story, one that will surely rival Where the Crawdads Sing in its portrayal of survival in the most heartbreaking circumstances.
Iola is a small town along the banks of the Gunnison river. Here 17 year Victoria Nash and her parents and brother grow peaches. They are renown for the Nash peaches, their flavour and juiciness. When Torie,as she is known has a chance encounter with a young boy, Wilson Moon. she cannot stop thinking about him. Although he was covered in coal dust, his manners and quiet way captured her heart. The year is 1948, and small town bigotry and prejudice are at the fore. In a bold move Torie goes looking for this boy at the local boarding house where the workers live. She soon learns that Wilson (Wil) has been kicked out because he is a half breed. Torie eventually finds Wil and they soon meet in secret, often in his little hut high in the mountains. Tories, nasty volatile older brother Seth finds out what is going on, with devastating consequences, leaving Torie pregnant and alone. Her decision to leave her home and fend for herself in Wils abandon hut is a true tale of survival in extreme circumstances and Tories life is tested many times.
Just such a great story.

#GoAsARiver #NetGalley

There was never any doubt that this book would get five stars. From the first few words I loved and looked forward to the story as it would unwind. The story of Torie and Wil, both from totally different worlds. How I cried, laughed and felt anger for the two starstruck lovers, their forbidden love and all the bigotry Wil had to suffer.
This story was beautifully written and I can't believe it's a debut!!.
I received this free ARC book for an honest review.
#Netgalley, #randomhouse, #shelleyread.author.

Victoria Nash is only twelve when her mother passes away, she becomes the homemaker for her father, brother Seth a troublemaker and uncle Ogden. They live near a little town called Iola, in Colorado, her family own a farm and orchard. Nash peaches are the best, big and juicy and they have a roadside stall and people drive for miles to buy their fruit.

Wilson Moon is a handsome young drifter, he arrives in Iola and he’s quickly chased out of town. Wil is an American Indian, he was taken away from his parents as a toddler and he has no idea what tribe he belongs to. It was hard for Torie growing up without a mother, she had no one to explain womanly things to her and she’s now seventeen. Wil and Torie meet each other on a street in Iola, two lost and lonely souls, they see each other in secret and fall in love, until Wil disappears.

Torie makes plans to hide in the mountains, she secretly starts gathering supplies and storing food to take with her. Torie stays in a deserted hunters shack and it’s much harder to survive in the wilderness than she anticipated, Torie has to make a difficult choice and a very distressing one. Torie returns home, she discovers the government is talking about buying land in Iola, and two nearby towns, and to build the Blue Mesa Reservoir. Anything left behind could be auctioned off or burnt and then entire valley would be submerged under water.

I received a copy of Go as a River by Shelley Read from NetGalley and Random House UK in exchange for an honest review. Inspired by the real story of a reservoir being built in Colorado during the 1960’s and Ms. Read has created a phenomenal debut novel. I can’t believe this is the authors first book, the amazing narrative has as many twists and turns as a mighty Gunnison River and it’s tributaries. A historical saga spanning decades and it's about a young woman's ability to overcome difficult and challenging times and adversity. Tories meaningful friendships with characters Ruby-Alice and Zelda who provided help and guidance when she really needed it. Torie never gave up, she remained humble and always grateful. Five stars from me, the ultimate coming of age story, a captivating and hope filled one.

I’d heard great things about this book before receiving my ARC – and I wasn’t disappointed. Shelley Read paints such a vivid picture, not just of the dramatic and unforgiving scenery of Colorado but also of the intense emotional landscape that surrounds the story of Victoria Nash. For me, the descriptive writing evoked Steinbeck and the heart-rending pivotal moments in the plot reminded me of Sophie’s Choice. That’s not to say that this original and engaging book is in any way derivative.
Twelve-year-old Victoria’s childhood is ended by a tragic accident that kills her closest family in 1943. Without discussion she has to take responsibility for keeping house for her emotionally abusive father, brother and uncle on their Colorado peach farm. We feel the intense love that she had for those who have died, and her fear and loathing for the way she is treated by the men in her family. She draws on great inner strength to survive but has no female presence to offer comfort or advice.
At seventeen, Victoria meets a young itinerant worker, Wilson Moon. She’s inexperienced in the ways of love and life, but she is captivated by his gentle ways and dark good looks. This is the love of her life, and she is swept up in her emotions, with no compass to guide her. But Wilson is an outsider, and their relationship is in trouble from the start. The decisions she makes about her future are hers alone and they affect the rest of her life. Wil advises her to ‘go as a river’, attempting to flow around the obstacles that life throws up and constantly aiming for the future that she desires. It is advice that keeps her afloat in times of overwhelming grief and despair.
Adding to Victoria’s troubles, her peach farm – the one constant in her life – is threatened by a government reservoir scheme. This time the river itself is the obstacle and again she must decide how to survive and continue being true to herself.
The author makes great use of foreshadowing, meaning that we have an inkling what might be in store for the key characters, but no idea how it will work out and the suspense is kept up to the very last page.
I had fun looking up the locations on Google Maps and exploring the area online, matching them with the book’s physical descriptions of the fertile farmland and the contrasting savage mountains. It would be great fun to go and see them in real life, so if you’re bound for Colorado on holiday, make sure you read this first!

All I can add is that I will never again look at a peach without thinking of Go As A River.

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Go as a River
Shelley Read
4.54
714 ratings310 reviews

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Victoria Nash is just a teenager in the 1940s, but she runs the household on her family’s peach farm in the ranch town of Iola, Colorado—the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land in the Four Corners region, who wants to believe one place is just like another. When Victoria encounters Wil on a street corner, their unexpected connection ignites as much passion as danger and as many revelations as secrets. Victoria flees into the beautiful but harsh wilderness of the nearby mountains when tragedy strikes. Living in a small hut, she struggles to survive in the unforgiving conditions with no clear notion of what her future will be. What happens afterward is her quest to regain all that she has lost, even as the Gunnison River rises to submerge her homeland and the only life she has ever known. Go as a River is a story of love and loss but also of finding home, family, resilience—and love—where least expected.

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Genres
Historical Fiction
Fiction
Historical
Coming Of Age
Literary Fiction
Drama
Contemporary

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320 pages, Hardcover

First published March 7, 2023


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About the author
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Shelley Read
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Shelley Read is a fifth generation Coloradoan who lives with her family in the Elk Mountains of the Western Slope. She was a Senior Lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades, where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and Honors, and was a founder of the Environment & Sustainability major and a support program for first-generation and at-risk students. Shelley holds degrees in writing and literary studies from the University of Denver and Temple University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing. She is a regular contributor to Crested Butte Magazine and Gunnison Valley Journal, and has written for the Denver Post and a variety of publications.

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Ratings & Reviews
My Review
ReadingJunkie88
1 review
March 10, 2023
Heartbreaking and ultimately hopeful novel of survival and the bravery of the human spirit when faced with the toughest hardships and emotional challenges. This is a beautiful novel and I loved every word – highly recommended!

There are wonderful descriptions of the landscape against which this sweeping novel is set. Central to this is the Gunnison River and the Big Blue wilderness and small town of Lola, Colorado surrounded by farms and ranches – the story begins in 1948, and I really felt I was there!

Victoria – Torie - is a 17 girl who has already experienced tragedy through the death of her mother and close relatives, she works hard on her father’s farm, helping with the tending of the peach trees – which produce the sweetest peaches - and being the woman of the house. She unexpectedly finds love when she meets Wilson Moon, but it is not long before she suffers again, and her future is defined by the choices she must make.

Thank you to Netgalley for a chance to read this book in an exchange for an impartial review.

The way this novel was written was undeniably beautiful. Unfortunately, it took a ‘style over substance’ approach. It almost immediately began by introducing the forbidden romance between Victoria and Wilson. This was exciting at first but their relationship was sorely underdeveloped, much like Wil himself.

Writing the novel in past tense took away any chance of suspense. From the start, it made sure that I knew something terrible was looming. The book contained huge dramatic life events, but Victoria’s narration managed to lessen each moment’s impact. This could probably be attributed to the use of past tense as each of these pivotal events were anticipated.

OVERALL: This atmospheric novel was poetically written but, owing to its use of past tense and its slow pace, the potential sources of drama were drained of any shock or thrill.

Would I recommend?… If you’re after beautiful writing and not much else, then sure

This is a beautifully written story about forbidden love, family, hope and longing set in the 1940s in Colorado.
I loved the narrative which was so rich and well described that I was able to feel like I was there.
Victoria was a remarkable character and her strength and fortitude to continue through all the hard times was admirable. I followed her life eagerly and enjoyed every moment.
An emotional story about love and hope which kept me hooked throughout. Highly recommend this amazing tale. I will definitely read more from this author.

Victoria has had to grow up strong. After losing her mother, aunt and best friend in a road accident, she is left at the age of 12 to look after her father, uncle and brother. But growing up on a peach farm in the 1940’s is hard, especially without the guidance of an older woman and the reader is left in no doubt how strong Victoria has to be..
This is a wonderful book, lyrical, flowing it tales the reader to the heart of the story and brings the era to life through words that describe with feeling Victoria’s life.

Beautifully written, but so sad. What happens to Torie is awful - and that is why I'm giving 4 stars instead of 5, because there was so little positive about the story. It would be good to see what happened after the ending, which came too soon for me. I will have to hope they were happy, but who knows?

I’m so glad that I read this as it is not my
normal choice of genre. It is so beautifully written with characters you fall in love with. A must read

This beautifully written story covers all of life's ups and downs. It tells of a young girl growing up on a Colorado peach farm in tremendous hardship. She shows great resilience throughout her life and deals with everything with dignity. I was slightly disappointed with the ending and would have liked another chapter bringing everything together rather than leaving everything up in the air.
Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK for the advance copy of this book.

Initially as I began this book iwas unsure if it was going to be one for me. However, I quickly realised that this was going to be a beautiful story. Set in the 1940s Torie a teenager growing up on the family peach farm meets a young traveller passing through Iola. This meeting sets the flow of the river, (story). The characters are sensitively written, Torie is the main character, supported by her Daddy, younger brother Seth who is challenging, her uncle Ogden, who is disabled. Torie is the only female in the household so has to look after the men. Not an easy life for a motherless girl.
The river is the flow of the story from then until the 1970s,as Torie's life changes. This is very well written and left me feeling sympathetic towards Totie and concerned for her.
This book is to be recommended.

A chance meeting on the street between a teenager and a young drifter starts this story, which is set in rural Colorado. Beginning in the 1940s, we leave them three decades later in the 1970s. It’s hauntingly written, lyrical and really rather beautiful. This is a book about family, about love and about loss. But it’s also about resilience and strength. Victoria the main character is a force to be reckoned with, she is the definition of a strong woman and yet you also see her vulnerabilities and feel her pain. You follow her growing up from a young teenager in charge of the household, on her family’s peach farm, into an independent woman with a place of her own, dealing with loss and grief in her own way.

All the characters are sympathetic, even the troubled Seth, his uncle and father to an extent. This is a tough life, the family has experienced tragedy and huge losses, they do the best they can, but often fall short. Victoria is holding it all together, at least in a practical sense. Other members of the local community are believable and well drawn; the trouble making vinegar-tongued woman who runs the flop house, the jolly large woman who is friendly to customers and excels at selling the Nash family peaches at the roadside stall, the odd neighbour who is one of the most touchingly written. I could picture them all clearly, the writing is crystal clear.

I gather that there really was the damming and flooding of the Gunnison river to make the huge Blue Mesa Dam. I am interested to find out more about the communities who had to move and the houses and farms that were lost in Colorado.

Admittedly I preferred the first half of the book. I was not so keen on the diary extracts, but it was a clever device to move the story forward and to explain what happened in the interim, between the two main events of Victoria’s adult life. I did find that I really missed reading about the trees and the peaches though!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read in advance copy of this book. I hope it does really well, it deserves to be read by many. I will look out for the next by this author.

Go As A River
Excellent, Thoroughly enjoyed reading about Torie on a Colorado peach farm caring for a houseful of men after her mother dies. She meets Wilson Moon who has appeared in her town but from a different race and unacceptable to the people of Iola. She forms a friendship with him and her story is built on this chance meeting.
The descriptions throughout were brilliant, I could feel myself wanting to find a nice juicy peach to eat out in the sunshine!
This was beautifully written, extremely sad and evocative but wonderful at the same time in a tale of love, loss and tremendous resilience.
My only disappointment is the story ending when it did and felt there should have been a last chapter bringing the meeting and aftermath to a better conclusion.
This has to be a top bestseller.

This story is so beautifully written and holds within it an affinity with mother nature and the grounding reality and power she holds.
The way in which Read writes about love, loss, and the act of finding oneself despite the obstacles and struggles that we are faced with is simply wonderful. The story of Victoria and her journey through a turbulent, difficult life is one which opens the reader up to accepting that despite the many hardships one faces, keeping grounded and doing the best we can is all we can do. The narrative is at times so raw but yet remains hopeful to humanity and the idea that there are those in the world who are willing to make the best of what we can give and love despite all our faults.
If you are a fan of Where The Crawdads Sing, or The Paper Palace then this book is for you.

A beautifully written debut novel, a story of a young girl Torie, in a household of men in Iola Colorado in 1947, cooking and cleaning and working on the family farm. She meets, purely by chance, Wilson Moon and feels an instant attraction, which is met by Wilson. But circumstances seperate them but only briefly and they meet again.
This book is a coming of age tale of love loss, resilience. It is so well written I could almost taste the peaches, sense the harsh and bleakness of Torie's surroundings. Stunning descriptions of the local area.
Set over a few years this is a lovely book that I already know will be in my top 5 for 2023.
If you liked Where the Crawdads Sing as i did,
you'll love this book. In my humble opinion this is much better. I only wish I could give more than 5 stars