Review: Once Upon a River

Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Over a decade ago, I read Diane Setterfield's splendid The Thirteenth Tale and was hooked on her writing. The idea of how our stories define who we are can be a haunting one, and that is especially true in her latest novel, Once Upon a River. This is a novel about parents and their children, about love and loss, about how grief can twist our perceptions, and about how believing the wrong story about one's self can lead to disaster. Centering on a seemingly miraculous little girl who is brought into The Swan, an inn on the Thames, a true mystery unravels about this child, who arrives looking dead but soon awakens, and several other little girls- a stolen toddler, a lost sister, and a missing granddaughter. Who is this little girl and what are the stories of the other three children? With a deft touch of local folklore and magical realism, Setterfield envelops you in the world, small farming community, and its denizens. With restrained but powerful emotion, you feel the predicament of those impacted by the little girl's arrival, echoing their own losses. The memorable characters and their stories are masterfully revealed to the reader. With echoes of the sensation novels of the Victorian era, this is a book to read slowly and savor.

The audiobook is narrated by the fabulous Juliet Stevenson, whose voicing of the various characters adds greatly to the story.

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