Torie a seventeen year old girl lives on a farm with her father, brother and uncle. She takes care of her family and helps with the peach harvest and plants vegetables. One day she meets a young man called Wil and this encounter will change her live forever.
A story about family, love and sacrifices spanning three decades that I couldn’t put down.
This was a wonderful book and I will be looking out for more work from this author. Thank you to NetGalley and Random House UK, Transworld Publishers for my e-copy in exchange for an honest review.

Picture a small Colorado town in the 1940s. 16-year-old Victoria Nash has lost her Mum, cousin and aunt in an accident. She is running a peach orchard with her taciturn father, her wayward brother and her crippled uncle, when she meets her first and only love, Wilson Moon. A fated meeting, a deeply secret relationship and a tragic future.

This is a story so utterly beautifully told, so skilfully paced, with parts drawn out and parts condensed that it leaves you breathless.
A deliciously ripened peach of a plot and my hot tip for a top rank in the 2023 book lists!

What an amazing book. Love novels with strong female characters and this one didn’t disappoint. Excellent.

First off I’d just like to say what a beautifully written novel this is. Something just drew me to this one, and I’m so glad it did.

It’s the 1940’s and teenager Victoria Nash is the only female in her household after the death of her mother. It’s a busy household of men ( there’s her Dad, brother, and a disabled uncle) all living on a successful peach farm in Iola, Colorado. Life consists of work and sleep and little else, that is until she heads into the village pulling a rickety wagon filled with late season peaches, and happens upon Wilson Moon, a drifter and Native American, displaced from his tribal land. Though their meeting is short, it ignites a spark within them both that will lead to both passion and danger. Victoria (Torie) believes Wil is the the most beautiful and caring soul that she’s ever met, but she’ll soon discover that racism is very much alive and well in her small community, and those who don’t fit the norm will face the consequences.

We follow Torie’s life over the course of decades, a life of passion, desire, heartbreak and betrayal - and what a stunning story it is. The beautiful but harsh landscape of mountains and forests surrounding her home (a place where Torie finds refuge after a tragedy) adds much to the storyline, and is almost a character in itself.

This is a beautifully descriptive novel, and here’s just one of the quotes that I loved - The landscapes of our youths create us, and we carry them within us, storied by all they gave and stole, in who we become.

The characters are wonderfully drawn, none more so than the strong and resilient Torie. The storyline is so many things, so many emotions, both good and bad, but most of all it’s beautiful in its telling. This is my first review of 2023, and what a stunning read to begin the year. Highly recommended!

This was a very inspiring read and i learnt a lesson of perseverance from the main character.I loved this book and it didnt fail to make me immersed in its atmosphere.

This is a book to get lost in and to savour. The descriptions are wonderful and even though I have finished reading, I am still imagining peaches everywhere! It’s a wonderful, slow burn of a story, told by Torie, who shows great resilience and persistence to overcome her tragic start in life. She meets the love of her life, Wilson Moon, when she is 17 but their love affair doesn’t end well. There are some very sad moments but the story is ultimately hopeful. It’s a tale of endurance, courage and new beginnings. I loved it!

This is a beautiful book. It is heartwarming and heartbreaking in equal measure. It is described so well and I felt fully immersed in the atmosphere the author created.

A very descriptive book with an emotional storyline. Perseverance and changing fortunes see the heroine through difficult times.

A lovely book, it is quite a tragic story in many ways. The story starts in the 1940’s, follows the Vietnam War and continues part way through Victoria’s life. Victoria (Torie) has lost her mother and lives with her dad and younger brother who is going off the rails at an early age. Torie runs the house for her dad, brother and a disabled uncle. His uncle was disabled in the Vietnam War, this made him very bitter. The family run a peach farm and she also helps with that. One day while in their local town she meets by chance an American Indian man named Wil. It was love at first sight and the start of many tragedies. The story continues and you cannot help but feel sorry for Torie as at a young age she has to overcome so much. You cannot help but love and admire Torie and as she grows older and wiser you feel more and more attached to her. This is a really lovely book. You can immerse yourself in the story and I loved the way you could almost feel the area where the peaches grow and she becomes a woman. I can visualise the scenery. Again a lovely book

It's quite a long time since I've read a book like this. There is very little dialogue. The story is told almost entirely by the main character Victoria. The area of Colarado, where the novel is set, is described beautifully and you really feel the hardship of the community at the time. Victoria's love story is heartbreaking and it's so sad that the same bigotry still exists today. A book to make you think about the inequality in the world but also feel hopeful of a possible brighter, fairer future.

Love and peaches, prejudice and hate - they are all present in this novel set in 1940s America. The heroine, Victoria, is left to tend house at a young age when her mother dies and has to look after her father, brother and disabled uncle. The story follows her through good times and bad until she learns to ‘Go Like. A River’ and flow around the difficult spots. Well written with believable characters, this is a good read.

I can’t put into words how stunning this book is!!! You can picture the mountains, taste the peaches and feel the attraction between Victoria and Wilson. The story is so beautiful and equally so heartbreaking. I’ve read a good few books this year but this one has to be at the top, I feel it will be the book to read in 2023 and a worthy best seller.
Thank you to NetGalley, Random House UK, Transworld Publishers, Doubleday and Shelley Read for the opportunity to read and review this masterpiece.

Go As A River is a fabulous read and a must for those who enjoyed Where The Crawdads Sings. I can honestly say it is one of the best books that I have read this year.
This story begins in the 1940’s when the main character Victoria is just 17 years old and the only female living in a farm. She takes on the role of her mother who died leaving her to care for Dad, brother and uncle. Her Dad is hard working as is Victoria but her brother is somewhat wayward and rather obnoxious as is her disabled uncle.
Victoria encounters a stranger when she is in town one day who sets her heart a flutter but as he is an Indian, he is classed as an outcast and not welcome by the town folk. There is a spark between them and Victoria begins to meet him in secret that is until an event unfolds that leaves her bereft and she feels the need to escape her life.
The story progresses up to the time of the Vietnam War with Victoria showing survival and strength through the years. Her forbidden love drives her on with moving on with her life.
This story does not shy away from sensitive subjects like racism and prejudice and is well written.
Mt thanks to the publishers Doubleday and Net Galley for the ARC of this terrific book.

A seventeen year old motherless girl, living with grief,a jealous and hateful brother and a distant father, expected to keep the family fed and the menial jobs on the peach farm running, finds love, prejudice and a situation she cannot fix.
This is a beautifully written story of love and hope up against impossible difficulties, where nature’s gifts abound, but are threatened by progress. Help comes from unexpected sources, but also from the depths of her own self, redemption in coming to terms with her story.

A poignantly heartbreaking novel about resilience and love. In rural post World War II Southwest America times are difficult on Victoria’s family farm. Her mother, aunt and nephew’s death in a car accident some years before has left their remaining family only limping along. Victoria has done her best to fill the hole her mother’s absence left in the family’s heart, but at seventeen she’s finding it difficult. Her brother spends his time either drinking or tinkering on his roadster with his equally mean and rowdy friends. Her father just drifts through his days. And so Victoria just plods on. Until she encounters a dark haired Native American youth, Wil, not much older than her and he turns her world upside down. She’s drawn instantly to him, both for his manner and the ease he navigates his world, but also something more that she can hardly name. And through the coming days and weeks she experiences the brightest and darkest of moments as she learns the meaning of race, outsiders and those who don’t fit the established norms in a small town community. These moments will define the coming years and decades in her life, until the meaning of the words Wil spoke to her, “go like a river” become clear to her and she comes full circle.

The storytelling is compelling, the narrative descriptively evocative, creating imagery that immerses the reader fully in the setting. A novel of real place and time so beautifully rendered, the lapse into mostly narrative telling in the second half is hardly noticeable. I really loved the themes and the rich depth of characterization of Victoria, Wil, and her family.

I really enjoyed this novel. Loved the characters and the storyline. Not only was there a romance but the history and prejudice towards the indigenous community was very well conveyed.

A stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking story. Thank you so much to the publisher, for the opportunity to read this. I can’t wait to read more from Shelley Read.

‘Go as a River’ is one of those superbly compelling stories which immediately engage the reader, and I was drawn deeply into the book right from the start.
The storytelling, the pace and the language are powerful, the characters drawn with care and sensitivity, the settings truly engaging. There is a beautiful angst and inevitability to the unfolding of young lives, and the rigidity of older ones, encompassing racism, love in many forms, duty and ultimately emergence and a sense of freedom. Highly recommended.

Such a beautiful book! I absolutely adored the flawed main character, Victoria, and really felt for her when she got hit by tragedy after tragedy. The opening chapter is so perfect! I loved how the relationship between Wil and Victoria was established in only a few thousand words, really wonderful.

If I'm being picky, the book does drag a little in the middle. I felt like the plot was a bit forced/coincidental for example (SPOILER alert!): snow in the middle of August which kills or her crops and forces her back into town. Then her Dad dies immediately forcing her to take full control of the peach farm. However, I am being really picky, because it was a great book.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for an ARC.

Absolutely shining debut novel!

All the pieces are here - a flawed heroine who quietly perseveres through tragedies and hardships and build and rebuilds her life, picking up and going on in the face of loss. The story spans decades - from the 40s to 70s - in rural Colorado. Victoria (Torie when she's younger) runs the household for her dad, brother, uncle after the loss of 3 members of her extended family. When she meets Wilson Moon, a young Native American, in town, they make an immediate connection, but it is brief and filled with danger as well as love. Victoria flees to the wilderness and struggles to survive. Along the way there are some wonderful supporting characters. This is a story of hope and survival, of the families we are born into and the families we make. The author obviously knows and loves the Colorado wilderness - the setting is almost its own character. We come to love the farm and the succulent peach trees and the river cascading through the valley. Victoria is a beautiful, resilient woman - strong and resourceful in her own right. She has fears but faces them and plows through. The result is a novel that stays with you long after the last page is turned.


Quotes I liked:

The landscapes of our youths create us, and we carry them within us, storied by all they gave and stole, in who we become.

I've come to understand how the exceptional lurks beneath the ordinary, like the deep and mysterious world beneath the surface of the sea.

...time pulls our strings.

In the endless stumble towards ourselves, we harvest the crop we are given.

It's the land that endures, riding out human folly when it must, reclaiming itself when it is able, and moving on.

A new life was unfolding before me. I never stopped questioning the choices of my past, but in the known world, each step surely unfurls the next, and we must walk into that open space, mapless and without invitation.

I looked around me at the birth and growth and death piled atop one another, at the open bellies of downed trees feeding new sprouts, all the life pushing through every crook and crevice and possibility for light. It was an ancient acumen far too rich and complex to fully grasp but exactly what I needed to remind myself that it is in these layers of time that everything becomes itself.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for this lovely ARC!