Setterfield's lovely, melancholy novel opens on the Winter Solstice, 1887. Locals have gathered at the Swan Inn for their usual storytelling, when a severely injured man carrying a dead girl enters and collapses. Hours later, the dead girl miraculously comes to life, and the villagers are left with the story of a lifetime. But who is she? The girl herself won't speak, so everyone is left to speculate; is she the child of a wealthy family kidnapped two years ago, the granddaughter of a local farmer whose son can't stay out of trouble, a sister gone missing decades ago, a gypsy girl left behind by accident?
At its heart, Once Upon a River is about the stories we tell -- to entertain, to remind us of what happened, to convince others, to hide from ourselves, to heal. The novel spans a year, during which we get to know a large number of locals, all of them movingly characterized. Setterfield is a gentle writer who is able to find the humanity in everyone. Life on the Thames in 1887 could be brutal and cruel, but also kind and forgiving. And if you get a good story out of it, so much the better.
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