Storytelling at the Swan is the favorite past time of the crowd and the reason so many men stop by for their drinks.

One night the storytelling became real when a man who had been hurt and a small girl who appeared as if she had drowned fell through the inn’s front door.

Then a miracle happened....the girl came alive again. The townspeople and their storytelling ways had many questions, and some thought the girl was one of their own who had passed.

We follow the characters as they try to interpret what happened as we are treated to Ms. Setterfield’s beautiful, poetic, descriptive style.

And...we can’t forget the character, the Thames River....it is a part of everyone’s lives and what the story line revolves around.

The ending of each character’s story made the statement....”Something is going to happen,” and something definitely did.

ONCE UPON A RIVER beautifully and slowly unfolded as the mystery of the little girl was revealed and as we learn about the lives of the characters.

If you enjoy a Gothic theme, and a story line with intriguing as well as odd characters, ONCE UPON A RIVER should be a book you will enjoy.

I do have to say it was a bit long, but Ms. Setterfield's marvelous storytelling skills make you want it to go on even longer especially once the mystery is revealed and you find out more about the characters. 4/5

This book was given to me free of charge by the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I’m a fan of Diane Setterfield’s writing. She is a great storyteller.

Well written.

i'ave read a few of the not as highly rated reviews and I get their comments. Some felt the blackness and racism of the time was not portrayed appropriately and realistically. I say this is just a story. Was Armstrong treated the way he described in real life...probably not. But its a STORY. having said that I truly enjoy reading this author.. Her writing is excellent and while there are a lot of characters and stories going on, i did not feel lost like i do in some books. Her writing stayed on point. I loved the THIRTEENTH TALE so was pretty sure this might be good as well. yes its part fairy tale, part fable, a little science thrown in , which i thought made it very interesting. Takes place in the 1800's when some of that is coming up and society is going to be changing. I think it was well worth the read.

Hint- you need to make it past the first 80 pages; Then it will all become clear; Well written prose surrounding the river and how life compares. Our club fell in love with many of the characters. The author does an amazing job of putting everything beautifully together. Our club had a great discussion.

Diane Setterfield's ONCE UPON A RIVER is four mysteries with the Thames River as the backdrop. The foremost mystery is that of a nearly drowned (not really "returned to life," as explained in Setterfield's "Note") four-year-old girl. No one knows who she is, and she doesn't speak. The other three mysteries are of girls who have gone missing, feared drowned in the Thames. Could the unknown, nearly drowned girl be one of the three missing girls?

This book is told in the writing style of a fairytale, which turned me off for the first 60 or so pages. I almost didn't continue reading until I read in Setterfield's "Note" that one of the characters is based on an actual photographer of the Thames at the time of this story. After I read a few more pages, I got used to this writing style and found I enjoyed the mysteries.

But I admit ONCE UPON A RIVER does sound as corny as a fairytale sometimes, and I even expected "and they all lived happily ever after" at the end. Sure enough, the last chapter is called "Happily Ever After."

I won this book from Atria Books.

It was a very slow and detailed read but also fascinating in its own way. Pretty much everything happens in the last 40 pages so if you feel like giving up but keep going back to it, make sure you at least read the final few chapters to hear how everything turns out. I liked that there was an eerie, haunting quality to the book while still having interesting characters and multiple story lines. I listened to the audio book after initially buying the digital book because that was easier for me!

In Once Upon a River, on the dark night of the winter solstice, a wounded stranger shows up at an old inn by the river with a dead child in his arms. A few hours later, against all odds, the dead child stirs and is alive again. What follows is a tale of magic, hope, love, redemption, and so much more.

This story reads like a folklore, rich and lyrical. There are many parts to this carefully crafted tale, and they are all woven deftly into one cohesive narrative. I was struck by the richly imagined characters, and in particular, the strong females, who totally appealed to me.

Once Upon A River, Diane Setterfield, author; Juliet Stevenson, narrator
Once upon a time, there was a village near the Thames. The time was the late 1800’s. Superstition and rumor abounded. Information traveled largely by word of mouth, and gossip was the frequent and prevailing conveyor of current events.
Storytelling, however, is an art form. When a severely injured man holding a dead little girl, suddenly appeared in the local gathering place, The Swan, run by Maude, Joe, and their little Maudes, the story takes flight. The man, a photographer named Henry Daunt (based on a real photographer, Henry Taunt), apparently had rescued the child from the river, but he had no memory of how or why he was on the river or how or why he had sustained such terrible wounds.
When the lifeless child suddenly returned to life at The Swan, the tale of the miracle travelled like the wind. Although mute, she was otherwise very much alive. Many people found themselves drawn to her as questions arose about how she got into the river, to whom did she belong, and what was it she seemed to be searching for, or perhaps was waiting for, near the “River Thames”, as she seemed to always be watching wistfully for someone or something. As the abundant, conflicting claims to her arose, there was some confusion for both the characters in the story and the reader trying to keep track of the missing children in the story.
Rita an unmarried, thirty-five-year-old woman had been a foundling and never knew her parents. She was considered the best alternative to the local doctor as she had trained herself and knew and understood most of the medical information in use at the time. She believed the four-year-old little girl was very much dead when the wounded Henry Daunt, who had pulled her out of the water and into his little boat, brought her into The Swan. When the child seemingly returned to life while sleeping on Rita’s chest, she grew very much attached to her and suddenly hoped no one would come forward to claim her, so that she could keep her, love and care for her.
Lily White, was another who claimed her. She was filled with guilt about her sister’s death and believed the child was her sister Ann’s ghost, come to haunt her. What happened to Ann? Her stepbrother Victor Nash secretly tormented her. She was powerless to stop him. She worked for the pastor who, coincidentally, was in possession of Armstrong’s stolen pig, a pig that communicated with humans. Who stole the pig?
Peter and Helena Vaughn believed that their daughter Amelia had returned to them two years after her unsolved kidnapping. Helena had never fully recovered afterwards and had retreated within herself and withered. Now, with the return of this child, she seemed to be totally healthy, once again. Happy with his recovered wife, Peter was wary of sharing with her, his misgivings about whether or not the child was theirs. He secretly sought the help of Mrs. Constantine, a woman who possessed special skills. What had really become of Amelia?
A married couple, Bess, a woman with some physical afflictions, and Robert Armstrong, a black man who was the son of an Earl and his domestic, believed the child could be Alice, the previously unknown offspring of their recalcitrant son, Robin. He had secretly married and had a child. He had always been a handful and had moved away from their farm. He believed he was higher born than they were and did not have to engage in menial labor with his half-siblings. He does not truly know his own parentage, but since he is white, and is in possession of some documents that he stole from Armstrong, he does not believe that Robert is his true father and blames his mother for all his problems. Who was Robin’s true father? What kind of a man did Robin become, a man like Armstrong or a man like his biological father? Which had the greater influence on him and why?
Ruby, Amelia’s babysitter, was blamed for the child’s disappearance for she had gone for a walk at just the time she was taken. Her life was ruined and her marriage to Ernest was called off.
Ben, a young child horribly abused by his father, who told him he was “eating the profits” and was one of his too many mouths to feed, witnessed what was presumed to be Alice, and her mother walking toward the river. They were never seen again. How does his existence change the outcome of the story?
Quietly is the ferryman. He also lost a daughter. His ghost haunts the river picking up those who need to be rescued, or taking those who need to be transferred, to the other side where the living no longer dwelt. Is Quietly real? Is his daughter?
There are both evil and good people, villains and heroes, populating the pages of the novel as the story grows. Even their names seem purposefully chosen by the author with each careful word, like Quietly who silently appears when needed, Daunt who is never daunted, Lily White who is either a murderess or pure as the driven snow, Ruby, a gem of a young girl, Armstrong, a black man of strong character, the well-educated and well brought up son of the Earl. Conflicts of purpose and personality also appear. Robin is not like a beautiful bird, but rather like a vulture.
There are many parts to this story, and once it begins, it works its way to and from, backwards to the past and forward to the present, until it comes to its end. It is about love and hate, kindness and cruelty, deception and clarity, secrets and revelations, race and wealth, the good and the evil in man. It is about loyalty and infidelity, honesty and dishonesty, virtue and vice. It is about parenting, family, love and devotion. It is about whether or not the sins of the father are visited upon the son. It is about the meaning of a parent. Who is the parent, the empty vessel that merely created him/her or the one that hoped to inspire and teach the child providing exceptional education and values?
The novel contains lots of extraneous, interesting information about life, nature, photography, medicine, and even the care of a pig. Many of the animals were treated as if they could interact and communicate with humans. Some of the humans behaved more like undomesticated animals. In some ways, the story felt magical and otherworldly. It is written with a lyrical quality, indicating how carefully the author has chosen every word. The narrative provided a stage for the narrator to show her exceptional mastery with emphasis, accent and character identity as the setting, atmosphere and characters in each scene were presented. Although it sometimes felt a bit overlong, in the end, as all questions were resolved and the fog was cleared, to me it felt just right.