On a cool autumn day in 1948, Victoria Nash delivers late-season peaches from her family's farm set amid the wild beauty of Colorado. As she heads into her village, a dishevelled stranger stops to ask her the way. How she chooses to answer will unknowingly alter the course of both their young lives.
So begins the mesmerising story of split-second choices and courageous acts that propel Victoria away from the only home she has ever known and towards a reckoning with loss, hope and her own untapped strength.
Gathering all the pieces of her small and extraordinary existence, spinning through the eddies of desire, heartbreak and betrayal, she will arrive at a single rocky decision that will change her life for ever.
GO AS A RIVER is a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettable characters and a breathtaking natural setting, it is a sweeping story of survival and becoming, of the deepest mysteries of love, truth and fate.
Go As A River by Shelley Read was published on 13 April 2023 by Doubleday. My thanks to the publisher who sent my copy for review as part of this #RandomThingsTours Blog Tour
This is an utterly beautiful, lyrical and vivid story of a young girl’s coming-of-age.
Torie has been the woman of the house for five years, her mother died when she was twelve. Torie cleans, cooks, picks and packs the peaches from their orchard, tends the kitchen garden and keeps quiet. Her father, uncle and younger brother expect that, and it’s just what she does.
One day, when in the local town, Torie meets Wil Moon, and for the first time in her life she feels like a female. Their meeting was brief, but Torie cannot get Wil out of her mind. Other people in town would rather Wil leave, he’s Native American and subject to racial hate and prejudice from all.
Torie and Wil do meet again, and this is the beginning of a love story that is both innocently beautiful and viciously tragic. As the novel moves on, Torie does too and becomes a strong-willed woman who shows that she can overcome the odds stacked against her.
Not only are the human characters wonderfully created, but this author also brings to life the Colorado mountains. From the wonders of the lush fruits produced on the land, to the harshest winters and also, of course, the flowing river of the title.
Wil teaches Torie many things, and the most important of all is that she should ‘go as a river’; keep moving, and change your course if you need to.
A true love story, and especially one that details the strength of the mother/child relationship and how memories can guide and steer a life, regardless of the horrors that are inflicted upon it.
This is powerful, stunning writing with a lead character that readers will love.
A version of my review was published in the Express S Magazine a few weeks ago
Shelley Read is a fifth generation Coloradoan who lives with her family in the Elk
Mountains of the Western Slope. She was a Senior Lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades, where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and Honours, and was a founder of the Environment & Sustainability major and a support program for first-generation and at-risk students.
Shelley holds degrees in writing and literary studies from the University of Denver and Temple University’s Graduate Program in Creative Writing.
She is a regular contributor to Crested Butte Magazine and Gunnison Valley Journal, and has written for the Denver Post and a variety of publications.
Go As A River, her first novel, is inspired by the landscape she comes from and will be published in over thirty territories.
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