ONCE UPON A RIVER | DIANE SETTERFIELD | 2019

It’s winter solstice in 1887 and magic realism is alive and well in the small village of Radcot on The Thames where a small girl, ostensibly dead, is brought into The Swan inn. Then she is alive. Who is she? Where are her family? Why was she in the river? How come she was dead and is now alive?

All these questions are answered slowly and gently. This is no fast passed who-done-it and nothing like The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield’s other great book. If the child could speak she could tell her tale but she doesn’t. A family claims the child as one that went missing a few years earlier, and then there are others who would take her in.

The villagers at The Swan each have their own tale to tell as part of a long-standing event to tell the most intriguing folk tale on the night, and these are interwoven through the story along with the enchanted river. Part mystery, part Gothic, each chapter slowly weaves its magic into a story to cherish.