Name: Julija M's review of Once upon a River by Diane Setterfield
Item: Once upon a River
Rating: 5
Author: Julija M

Diane Setterfield

Once upon a River

On a dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, an extraordinary event takes place. The regulars are telling stories to while away the dark hours, when the door bursts open on a grievously wounded stranger. In his arms is the lifeless body of a small child. Hours later, the girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can science provide an explanation? These questions have many answers, some of them quite dark indeed.

Those who dwell on the river bank apply all their ingenuity to solving the puzzle of the girl who died and lived again, yet as the days pass the mystery only deepens. The child herself is mute and unable to answer the essential questions: Who is she? Where did she come from? And to whom does she belong? But answers proliferate nonetheless.

Three families are keen to claim her. A wealthy young mother knows the girl is her kidnapped daughter, missing for two years. A farming family reeling from the discovery of their son’s secret liaison, stand ready to welcome their granddaughter. The parson’s housekeeper, humble and isolated, sees in the child the image of her younger sister. But the return of a lost child is not without complications and no matter how heartbreaking the past losses, no matter how precious the child herself, this girl cannot be everyone’s. Each family has mysteries of its own, and many secrets must be revealed before the girl’s identity can be known.

Once Upon a River is a glorious tapestry of a book that combines folklore and science, magic and myth. Suspenseful, romantic, and richly atmospheric, the beginning of this novel will sweep you away on a powerful current of storytelling, transporting you through worlds both real and imagined, to the triumphant conclusion whose depths will continue to give up their treasures long after the last page is turned.

A Novel

Once Upon a River

Anna Concannon 

A fellow had written a book lately-Armstrong had heard tell of it- in which he proposed that man was a kind of clever monkey [sic]Armstrong was inclined to believe it. He had found the line that separated man from the animal kingdom to be a porous one.

Julija M

“One of the most pleasurable and satisfying new books I've read in a long time. Setterfield is a master storyteller...swift and entrancing, profound and beautiful.” —Madeline Miller, internationally bestselling author of Circe and The Song of Achilles “A beguiling tale, full of twists and turns like the river at its heart, and just as rich and intriguing.” —M.L. Stedman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Light Between Oceans “This is magical, bewitching storytelling...High prose expressed with rare clarity, story for the unashamed sake of story, a kind of moral dreaminess…well, the list continues to grow.”—Jim Crace, National Book Critics Circle winner and author of Being Dead and Harvest From the instant #1 New York Times bestselling author of the “eerie and fascinating” (USA TODAY) The Thirteenth Tale comes a richly imagined, powerful new novel about the wrenching disappearance of three little girls and the wide-reaching effect it has on their small town. On a dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, an extraordinary event takes place. The regulars are telling stories to while away the dark hours, when the door bursts open on a grievously wounded stranger. In his arms is the lifeless body of a small child. Hours later, the girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can science provide an explanation? These questions have many answers, some of them quite dark indeed. Those who dwell on the river bank apply all their ingenuity to solving the puzzle of the girl who died and lived again, yet as the days pass the mystery only deepens. The child herself is mute and unable to answer the essential questions: Who is she? Where did she come from? And to whom does she belong? But answers proliferate nonetheless. Three families are keen to claim her. A wealthy young mother knows the girl is her kidnapped daughter, missing for two years. A farming family reeling from the discovery of their son’s secret liaison, stand ready to welcome their granddaughter. The parson’s housekeeper, humble and isolated, sees in the child the image of her younger sister. But the return of a lost child is not without complications and no matter how heartbreaking the past losses, no matter how precious the child herself, this girl cannot be everyone’s. Each family has mysteries of its own, and many secrets must be revealed before the girl’s identity can be known. Once Upon a River is a glorious tapestry of a book that combines folklore and science, magic and myth. Suspenseful, romantic, and richly atmospheric, the beginning of this novel will sweep you away on a powerful current of storytelling, transporting you through worlds both real and imagined, to the triumphant conclusion whose depths will continue to give up their treasures long after the last page is turned.

Sarah Sammis

While numerous family reunions could be a satisfying read, this book suffers from pacing issues and having too many characters of similar type and name. To get the most out of this book, if, say, I was reading it for a literature class, I would need to diagram everyone as they are introduced and track their progress. As I was reading for pleasure, I skimmed the majority of the book save for the first hundred pages and the last hundred pages of nearly five hundred page volume.

http://pussreboots.com/blog/2021/comm...

Kath

Once Upon A River is an ode to storytelling, a book about community and family, and discovering your foothold 🌿

It begins when an injured man trudges into The Swan, (an ancient inn & is a highlight of the novel for it is where many stories are told), carrying a girl who appears to have drowned, in his arms, and then collapses. The local nurse comes and finds the girl to have no pulse and is not breathing, despite appearing to be free of any signs of drowning or other injuries. A mystery till the very end, the girl springs back to life and breaths again a few moments later, startling the whole inn. 🌩️

After reading The Thirteenth Tale last year, I really wanted to get my hands on other Setterfield books and so I was really excited to finally read her most recent novel! This captures the essence of Setterfield's: her delicate, simple, yet lyrical prose, topped with a captivating atmosphere, and her fairy tale-esque mystery-entwined plot. 🌼

I really loved how she treated storytelling as this community-defining phenomenon; and that how one story isn't owned by one single entity. Setterfield also teased a lot about the fine line between our reality and a supernatural one - but in this wonderful and magical way. ✨

highly recommended if you:
✳like slow burn books
✳not bothered that much by religious undertones
✳love third-person multiple POV-narration

Laura Mauler

I'm absolutely blown away. Fantastic fantastic fantastic.

altlovesbooks

"There are stories that may be told aloud, and stories that must be told in whispers, and there are stories that are never told at all."

An inn, a mysterious girl, three separate family stories, and the Thames all combine to create a story that I'm really glad I finally read! The story revolves around the girl -- who is she? Where did she come from? How did she get here? And the answers lead the reader down some really twisty family stories that sometimes lead to more questions before they get to the answers. 

I thought this was a really fine example of magical realism; the fantastic elements were blended really well with real life to the point where you're left wondering if--maybe--there's some truth to it all after all. The cast of characters is large, but not so large that you lose track of who's who, and the answers at the end were surprising to me. 

One of my favorites from this year. Highly recommend.

loved the writing style, rlly enjoyable read - just not the biggest fan of mystery books

characters were <33 & the setting was beautiful

loved the writing style, rlly enjoyable read - just not the biggest fan of mystery books

characters were <33 & the setting was beautiful

Colleen

3.5 Stars
 
ARC provided by Atria/Emily Bestler Books via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
 


  



Well, the first thing to say is that this definitely is not The Thirteenth Tale. Although both books are slow burning with multilayered stories, the two have very different tones. The Thirteenth Tale is a gothic mystery; Once Upon a River does have a mystery element, but it’s a character driven story with a lot of drama. It’s well written, but not exactly to my taste, and definitely not what I was expecting.

The story is set around the Radcot Bridge on the Thames in England in the mid to late 1800s. One night a man stumbles into a pub carrying a little girl who they at first believe to be dead. When they discover she is alive, it starts a train of events surrounding who she is and how she ended up half-drown in the river. Three different families claim her as her own, and the story slowly builds the backstory of each character and the events that led up to that fateful night.

And while that semi-mystery is important to the plot, I would say that this is more a book about a storytelling than that plot itself. The idea of storytelling is woven throughout the book. There is also a ton of symbolism about the river. It was interesting and pretty but heavy-handed at times. And just in case you miss it; the symbolism gets spelled out. So while I liked the themes and symbolism in the writing, I wish she would have eased off over-explaining the symbolism in text. 

Once Upon a River is a story that leaves certain things open to interpretation. It is set in a time when old superstition, religion, and science were all clashing together. The open-ended answers allow for different possible explanations. One could classify this as a fairytale or Magical Realism or paranormal or just Historical Fiction. Any of those could be right depending on your interpretation. It’s really up to the reader.

The characters were well drawn. It was easy to tell everyone apart and remember who they all were. Which is good because there are a lot of characters, and the story does jump around a lot. I didn’t love any of the characters though. Some of them were annoying (and maybe intentionally so). And the storyline of one of the main characters had a trite ending that really irked me. My interest flickered at time because of the sluggish pacing. Like a river, the story meanders along at its own pace. It is well-crafted but also slow and plodding.

Once Upon a River is an engaging story, but I wasn’t as invested in the characters as much as needed in order to love this. I was interested in an emotionally detached sort of way. And as I mentioned, there was too much drama for my tastes. This book simply never came alive for me; it was always just a story, and they were always just fictional characters. A big part of it was that this story was so different from what I was expecting. And to be fair, that did put a damper on my enjoyment of the book. If you like slow-burn, character-driven stories with lots of drama, then you should enjoy Once Upon a River.


RATING FACTORS:
Ease of Reading: 4 Stars
Writing Style: 3 Stars
Characters and Character Development: 4 Stars
Plot Structure and Development: 3 Stars
Level of Captivation: 4 Stars
Originality: 3 Stars

Taylor Thornton

Such an incredible book with incredible themes and allegories surrounding story telling and the power of stories and the power of water and the Thames river. There were so many twists and turns making the book so hard to put down. There were so many characters which made it difficult to follow along at times but overall it was an amazing story.

I really struggled to read this at the beginning as I was going through a reading slump. However I’m glad I stuck it out as it had such a lovely ending. The story was slow at the beginning and I was close to giving up on it but the more you read on the more you’re invested and I can happily say it gave me the twist and turns I needed.

'I was completely spellbound' - RUTH HOGAN 'An absolute feast of a book, which will keep you engrossed' RED magazine Some say the river drowned her...Some say it brought her back to life On 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 and in steps an injured stranger. In his arms is the drowned corpse of a child. Hours later, the dead girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? And who does the little girl belong to? An exquisitely crafted historical mystery brimming with folklore, suspense and romance, as well as with the urgent scientific curiosity of the Victorian age. ____________________ What readers are saying: ***** ‘Pure escapism, a beautifully written story.’ ***** ‘[An] intriguing and captivating tale which is utterly entrancing and deserves to be savoured.’ ***** ‘[A] haunting and compelling story of hope and the power of myths and legends. I adored it.’ ***** ‘It felt as comforting as the fantastical stories you read as a child yet with a darker edge.’ ***** ‘I was entranced from the beginning to the end.’

The dazzling Sunday Times Bestseller

Janice Hopper

I've had a little time to think about this book now. Still think it's one of the best books I've read in ages. I'm also absolutely positive that Juliet Stevenson's narration contributed to that opinion. These days I usually listen to audiobooks at 1.25 or even 1.5x normal speed. But Ms. Stevenson's voice and narration was just so wonderful that I was totally content to listen at normal speed, and soak up the richness of the story.

The story starts when an injured man carrying an apparently lifeless girl stumbles into a pub on the night of the winter solstice. At first the girl is assumed to be his daughter. When that turns out not to be the case, everyone that sees her is drawn to her. It honestly made me think of that Ray Bradbury story in The Martian Chronicles, where someone thinks they see a lost son, and someone else sees a lost daughter, and on and on. It had rather dire consequences to the shape-shifting Martian in the story. In this book, the girl fares a bit better.

Thereafter follows the story of who THIS girl is. There are other lost children (it's Victorian England or some analog thereof, after all). Relationships build and change. The river flows by, rising and falling. Families have problems, and work through them, mostly. Love doesn't solve everything, but without love, everything would be much, much worse.

These days we see a lot of stories about flawed characters and bad people. This story has some very good people. It has some ordinarily good people too, and a couple of thoroughgoing villains.

ETA: HOW DID I FORGET THAT THIS IS A STORY ABOUT STORIES??? I love stories about making stories.

If you like audiobooks, listen to this one. Or just read the book. It's lovely.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Finished now, and...
HOLY CARP, what a lovely, LOVELY book. And I am absolutely in love with Juliet Stevenson's narration.

More when I've had time to think about it for a bit. But seriously, one of the best books I've read all year.
_______________________________________________________
14 chapters in and OMG how have I never listened to anything narrated by Juliet Stevenson before??? SO VERY DAMN GOOD!!!!

Chapter 21: "There were standards at the Swan. Storytelling was one thing, lying quite another..."
Chapter 24: "But some men went about in their armor every day and showed the blades of their swords to all."



Note to self: Bradbury's "The Martian" in The Martian Chronicles.

Haley Murray

Amira BEN

2.5 ⭐
I feel like this story has been dragged out. I would have enjoyed it more if it was shorter I guess ? The writing style was not my cup of tea even though more objectively it was beautifully written. I think it's because there was too much details for me. 
I liked the conclusion though

kezzie

“It is a good thing to be solo on the river. There is freedom. You are neither in one place nor the other, but always on the move, in between. You escape everything and belong to no one.” 




Trigger Warnings:
abuse, racism, trauma, depression, sexual assault (alluded to and not shown) 


Synopsis:

This book is about how one night at an inn, a stranger appeared at the door with a little girl who was dead but ended up coming back to life. And when they try to figure out who she is, she can’t speak because she is mute. And it doesn’t help especially since three different families want to claim her. But she can’t be both Anne, Amelia, and Alice. So who is she, who’s is she? Also what secrets are people keeping and just how far down does this all go?

My opinion:

This book captured me from the beginning and I fell in love with it, I will say that it does drag a bit in the middle so this was a slow read for me but I still enjoyed it. 
I feel like this book isn’t really about the girl or the people, it’s about a river and how atmospheric the author made this book, it truly captured the river’s magic. 

Characters:

Now my favorite character’s are definitely Reta and Daunt, I think they were just so well done and truly I was in love with their characters.
The other characters are also so well rounded, I felt for all of them, they all felt so real and even characters you would meet for just one scene too. Everyone was so real, it was truly amazing to feel so connected to them. 

For you:

Now if you a book that makes you feel cozy and like curly up with some toast and a cup of hot chocolate by the fireside while it’s snowing outside then this is the book for you. 

Genre’s:

A historical fiction, fantasy, magical realism, mystery book




“There was more to life, more to death, then medical science had known.”

Liz Carpenter

Maxie Froelicher

** spoiler alert **
           I don’t know where to start with this book. It. Wasn’t good in my opinion. The only reasons I finished it were I was reading it for a book club, the shred of plot that persisted throughout was interesting, and I don’t like DNFing books. 

As I said, the plot was very thin, though when it was there it was enough to keep me going. Most things were eventually connected, and I will say that some of that was interesting too, but the narrative style itself? I could’ve done without it. It was long winded, didn’t seem to know what it was trying to say, and went off on tangents more often than not. Also the amount of ableism, racism, and misogyny that was present throughout the text, most of which had NOTHING to do with furthering the plot, and half of which was rehashed again and again, over and over, made it jarring and uncomfortable. You could say that it was “in the style of the time period it’s set in” but the narration talks to the reader more than once, so I feel like most of that should’ve been avoidable. Maybe once to get the idea of how Robert was treated, but not literally every chapter he was in.

The bigotry wasn’t the only thing that was repetitive either. The obsession with pigs and their intelligence was. Odd. And I know the whole thing was based around the river but were all the water cycle paragraphs and all the weird water metaphors necessary? Also, things like throwing in the dragons randomly? What was that about? It was talked about twice and treated as almost important but then never mentioned again. I feel like other things like that happened in other places as well but I cannot recall.

At the very end, it was awful. The ending felt like a cop out and just trying to get everything settled and happy for everyone, especially Rita suddenly being okay with being pregnant. Like. She spent the whole book being adamantly against it for incredibly valid reasons, and then suddenly she’s fine with it. The only part I really liked was them finding Alice cause that’s what Robert deserved, even though it did feel like the author has forgotten about Ben until the last second and had him be useful.

Overall I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone.

Read for the 2020 POPSUGAR Reading Challenge, Prompt: A book with a pun in the name
Read for the 2020 Around the World in 52 Books Challenge, Prompt #43: A book related to one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse (Death)

Lauren Attaway

This is a beautifully written fantasy that I did not love as much as The Thirteenth Tale, but I really enjoyed this book nonetheless. I was happy to have it come up later as a book club pick so I could get into chatting about the imagery,plot choices and the characters. It's a book best read with others, so you can have someone else to deep dive into it with.

Maura

Maria

Диана Сеттерфилдл - официально не мой автор (да, даже Тринадцатая сказка мне не понравилась). А эта - вообще скучища. Ну то есть, поначалу в повествовании хотя бы есть какой-то темп, но в темпе происходят ровно те события, которые описаны в аннотации. А потом всё становится страшно медленно и неинтересно. Персонажи никакие, интрига слабая. Еле дочитала, вот прям из принципа.

Alexandria Wilkie

I 97% loved this book. I have 3% misgivings with the ending of one character arc, in spoiler below. But it was really enchanting and satisfying.

It's in a weird place between attempting realism and allowing the fantastical, and I think it could annoy folks who want a more clear version of one or the other, but I really enjoyed it.

(view spoiler)[
She couldn’t have made her feelings about the matter plainer, and though he had been surprised—he had seen her tenderness towards the girl, assumed too much—he knew he would be doing her an injustice to try to make her change her mind. Her knowledge of her own mind was what he admired about her. To expect her to bend to his wishes would be to expect her to be other than herself. No, she would not change, so he must.

I loved Rita and Daunt's characters at the point where the above is written.

And then suddenly Rita at the end just being fine with having a child after it being a defining issue for her throughout her whole life, and with zero discussions about that radical change. And it subverts Daunt's feeling in the quote above, and he doesn't change at all and she does, and it's not especially acknowledged or justified, and I found that exceedingly frustrating. We have enough books and general thought trends of "the value of women is in their ability to have children," thank you, and Rita looked to be a character whose whole point was about the worth she provided to the world without being a mother and then it all crashes down in the last roughly five percent of the book, ARRRGH.
 (hide spoiler)]

Jill Swan

This book took me forever to get into, I was really forcing myself to read it until around halfway through but I am glad I stuck it out. The ending is lovely, everything is tied up so well. The very last paragraph was a bit annoying but I’ll ignore that. It’s a fun book of storytelling but it’s long, so I wouldn’t recommend starting it unless you’re willing to commit, especially since the beginning is slow to develop the town and its characters.

Kiya Robinson

Definitely recommend this for fans of The Essex Serpent. For me it was just a little too slow paced for the story, however the setting and characters were well written.

From the instant #1 New York Times bestselling author of the “eerie and fascinating” (USA TODAY) The Thirteenth Tale comes a “swift and entrancing, profound and beautiful” (Madeline Miller, internationally bestselling author of Circe) novel about how we explain the world to ourselves, ourselves to others, and the meaning of our lives in a universe that remains impenetrably mysterious. On a dark midwinter’s night in an ancient inn on the river Thames, an extraordinary event takes place. The regulars are telling stories to while away the dark hours, when the door bursts open on a grievously wounded stranger. In his arms is the lifeless body of a small child. Hours later, the girl stirs, takes a breath and returns to life. Is it a miracle? Is it magic? Or can science provide an explanation? These questions have many answers, some of them quite dark indeed. Those who dwell on the river bank apply all their ingenuity to solving the puzzle of the girl who died and lived again, yet as the days pass the mystery only deepens. The child herself is mute and unable to answer the essential questions: Who is she? Where did she come from? And to whom does she belong? But answers proliferate nonetheless. Three families are keen to claim her. A wealthy young mother knows the girl is her kidnapped daughter, missing for two years. A farming family reeling from the discovery of their son’s secret liaison stand ready to welcome their granddaughter. The parson’s housekeeper, humble and isolated, sees in the child the image of her younger sister. But the return of a lost child is not without complications and no matter how heartbreaking the past losses, no matter how precious the child herself, this girl cannot be everyone’s. Each family has mysteries of its own, and many secrets must be revealed before the girl’s identity can be known. Once Upon a River is a glorious tapestry of a book that combines folklore and science, magic and myth. Suspenseful, romantic, and richly atmospheric, this is “a beguiling tale, full of twists and turns like the river at its heart, and just as rich and intriguing” (M.L. Stedman, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Light Between Oceans).

Antonella Romani

Due to the Author's previous books, I had high expectations for this one, and it definitely met them.
This is a lovely, emotional, and heartfelt story full of folklore and great writing!
My biggest... complaint is that, while it gets easier to follow each character through out the book, it starts off introducing us to just about the entire town, and at one point I wasn't sure who was ho. 
I recommend this book and absolutely recommend this author!

Pam Sartain

Once Upon a River is set on the River Thames, and starts with a stormy winter solstice night, and a young girl being rescued from the river, and thought to be drowned, except she wakes up.

Three different people claim her to be their own, but she doesn't say anything, or act as though she recognises anyone. A couple whose daughter was kidnapped two years ago, a grandfather who hasn't ever seen his granddaughter, and a woman in her forties who recognises the girl as her sister. But who is she?

All of this, and the stories of Quietly, the ferryman who rescues people, whilst never stopping for rest himself.

This was such a thematic read, with the river ever present, that you could practically feel the dampness everyone spoke about in the book. I thought the characters were well filled, and the stories being told in the book were very good.

This has a bit of a fantastical, and that works in this setting. 

It's a lovely read, and will sweep you along with it.

Once Upon a River is out on 17th January 2019, and will be available on Amazon, and everywhere else you can find books!

I was given this book for free in return for an unbiased review, so my thanks to NetGalley and Random House UK (the publishers) for this book.

Check out my GoodReads profile to see more reviews!

Nadia

Really not sure on 3 or 4 stars.

It started really slow and there were too many characters introduced at the beginning. It then picked up a bit but kept slowing down in the middle quite a lot. It got so good near the end though, and I was quite sad / happy with the finish. 

Definitely not as good as The Thirteenth Tale though, which is one of my all time favourite books. This had a similar vibe to The Essex Serpent but I do feel like I enjoyed that more. 

Hmm I’ll probably maybe edit this later lmao.

Wen Asuncion

I picked up this book after reading so many dark novels. All I could say is that this is the most heartwarming book I read in a while.

Diane Setterfield's gentle storytelling made me feel like I was one of the audience at the Swan, sipping cider, enchanted by the stories told. Of course, not everyone and everything in this book is good. There are bad people, and as the past and present unfold (slowly, yet perfectly), we learn about the traumatic stories of the characters. Poor Lily. But what I like about this book is how it shows how tight the community is and how they support one another during tragedies or simply be there to offer a roof or warm drink to someone exposed in the elements. To go to such lengths just to help someone who showed them kindness (Hi, Ben!)

Also, Rita, oh I love her tenacity! In this world imbibed with magic, folklore, and fantasy, she's the one always with rational mind and presenting the scientific side. This gives the book just the perfect blend of magic and science, fantasy and reality.

This book also shows how stories spread and grow into new things (just as rivers), which could be either good or bad. If we relate it to today's society, we should be warned of misinformation and disinformation. We should always verify facts before believing a story, most especially if its masterfully told.

Julija M &
Once upon a River by Diane Setterfield

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