I mentioned before Christmas that I had just read and enjoyed Once Upon A River. In fact what I actually said was that it was “terrific” but that you would have to “bide a wee to find out why I think so.”

Today is that happy day—and having had a month to pause and reflect, I still think Once Upon A River is terrific. A friend recommended the book to me (there goes that magical word-of-mouth phenomenon again!) but didn’t say a lot more, so I wasn’t quite sure “what sort” of book it was. By which I mean both “genre” (for want of better term) but also “what’s it all about?”

From one perspective, genre doesn’t matter a whit: what matters is that the book is a terrific read. Still, it can be helpful to give readers some insight into the kind of story it is, as well as what it’s all about (or at least as far as I’m prepared to go on that one.)

So I will say that I think Once Upon A River qualifies as historical fiction, being set in England just over a hundred or so years ago, but  also comprises magical realism. This combination gives the story a different slant than the kind of historical fiction that’s about people caught up in Big Events. (I found the combination quite magical, but I’ll let you make up your own minds…)

Although not about Big Historical Events at all, Once Upon A River is very much a book about people and the events that are momentous in, and shape, their lives. It’s a story about a river (the Thames) and an inn, a ghostly ferryman and several pigs. It’s also about individuals and families, friendship and community; and about people and animals and lives that are lost, and sometimes how they are found again.

Once Upon A River is also a tale about stories, and how they are told, and why they matter; about warmth and kindness, but also about humanity at its worst as well as its best. It’s a book full of wonderful characters and the unique in the midst of the everyday—and with just enough mystery thrown in to make it magical.

As aforementioned, I think it’s terrific—and I think that if you’ve enjoyed books like Kate Atkinson’s Life After Life, Joanne Harris’s Chocolat, or Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World, you may also enjoy Once Upon A River.

I read my friend’s copy of Once Upon A River, which is the mass market paperback edition (528 pp), published by Black Swan/Doubleday (Transworld Publishers) in 2018. It’s so good, though, that I’m planning on buying a copy of my very own, because I know this is a book I’ll reread. 🙂