Diane Setterfield has written many wonderful books. My other favorite is The Thirteenth Tale, but here I am going to review, Once Upon A River. This is one of those books that has been sitting forever on my to read pile. So I was thrilled when one of my book groups decided to make it a discussion book. Though once I started it I was thinking so many books to read, this is so confusing, should I keep reading?
But like every good book discussion book this one did not let me down. I pushed through and it became quite interesting and mesmerizing the further I got. Also the discussion was fabulous and that always makes a reader walk away feeling fulfilled by the book.
This is an unusual story of an inn where the locals come to drink and tell stories. In the town there are three families who have lost young girls. The Vaughn family, who lost a child to an abduction, the Andersons, who eldest troublesome son, had a daughter who is missing, and Lily, who works for the church pastor, who lost a baby sister many years ago.
One evening a man arrives in a terrible storm carrying a small child in his arms who appears to be dead. The local young woman who is the only doctor in the area treats the man, and then realizes that the child is now alive. As the story unfolds we get to know all the many characters in this story which clearly centers around the river Thames that flows through the town.
An historical fiction based on a real town on the river, this is becomes a fascinating tale of the families and how they are interconnected and how people can want something so much they are willing to defy their true knowledge to make it so. There are multiple plot line working along side each other in this meandering novel. Setterfield writes, . “A story ought to go clearly in one direction, then, after a distinct moment of crisis, change to go in another." But that is not how she has written this book. This story flows like a river and when it hits a rock or a bend, it redirects around to a new direction.
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