Go as a River - by Shelley Read (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

Colorado Public Radio 2023 Books We Love

"Beautiful . . . A striking first novel of love and strength and
growth, set against the forests and rivers of Colorado's high country.
Read is a gifted writer, and the book is a literary triumph."--Denver Post

"With
gorgeous descriptions of the great outdoors, an illicit love story, and
an unforgettable protagonist, Go as a River offers something for
everyone."--Real Simple

Set amid Colorado's wild beauty, a heartbreaking coming-of-age story of a resilient young woman whose life is changed forever by one chance encounter.  A tragic and uplifting novel of love and loss, family and survival--and hope--for readers of Great Circle, The Four Winds, and Where the Crawdads Sing.

Seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash runs the household on her family's peach farm in the small ranch town of Iola, Colorado--the sole surviving female in a family of troubled men. Wilson Moon is a young drifter with a mysterious past, displaced from his tribal land and determined to live as he chooses.

Victoria encounters Wil by chance on a street corner, a meeting that profoundly alters both of their young lives, igniting as much passion as danger. When tragedy strikes, Victoria leaves the only life she has ever known, fleeing into the surrounding mountains, where she struggles to survive in the wilderness with no clear notion of what her future will bring. As the seasons change, she also charts the changes in herself, finding in the beautiful but harsh landscape the meaning and strength to move forward and rebuild all that she has lost, even as the Gunnison River threatens to submerge her homeland--its ranches, farms, and the beloved peach orchard that has been in her family for generations.

Inspired by true events surrounding the destruction of the town of Iola in the 1960s, Go as a River is a story of deeply held love in the face of hardship and loss, but also of finding courage, resilience, friendship, and, finally, home--where least expected. This stunning debut explores what it means to lead your life as if it were a river--gathering and flowing, finding a way forward even when a river is dammed.

Review Quotes

"Shelley Read creates a truly convincing and lovable character in Torie, who faces loss and despair, and has to make a decision which is driven by love, yet tragic for herself. It's a captivating novel, impossible to put down and one which will be remembered long after reading it."--Irish Examiner

"Beautiful . . . A striking first novel of love and strength and growth, set against the forests and rivers of Colorado's high country. Read is a gifted writer, and the book is a literary triumph."--Denver Post

"With gorgeous descriptions of the great outdoors, an illicit love story, and an unforgettable protagonist, Go as a River offers something for everyone."--Real Simple

"Evocative . . . Moving . . . Fascinating . . . Through lush imagery of the natural world, Go as a River shows the possibility of growing in the most challenging of circumstances, the power that flows through us, and how the natural world can give us the strength to keep on going."--The i Paper

"Shelley Read has written a splendid American Gothic tale of a young woman broken by circumstances who must find a way to forgive before she can love. Victoria Nash is a character for the ages as she navigates loss and despair on the road to redemption. The vast plains and desert canyons of her Colorado home are filled with ghosts until a mysterious drifter arrives and changes the course of her life forever. Go as a River is a stunning debut set in the soul of the American dream."--Adriana Trigiani, author of The Good Left Undone

"Shelley Read's lyrical voice is a force of nature, and when she lends it to a woman leading a hardscrabble life in rural Colorado, the result is tragic, uplifting--and completely unforgettable."--Bonnie Garmus, author of Lessons in Chemistry

"In Go as a River, Shelley Read delivers a heartbreaking and uplifting tale of a girl becoming a woman in a man's world. Young Victoria Nash is as tough and resilient as the Colorado mountains where she takes refuge, and as tender as the peaches that are her family legacy. Book clubs will love this redemptive story."--Tiffany Quay Tyson, author of The Past Is Never

"Completely spellbinding, vivid, and luminous."--Jane Green, author of Sister Stardust

"Shelley Read's devastatingly beautiful debut, Go as a River, delivers so very much: the tenderness and curiosity of young love, the eternal pangs of loss, the brutality of racism, the sustaining power of nature even in the face of man's destruction, and the precarious miracle of a mother's love. Suffused with wisdom and compassion, this shattering testimony to life is one to be savored, treasured, shared."--Meg Waite Clayton, internationally bestselling author of The Postmistress of Paris

"Read delicately unfurls the growing attraction between Torie and Wil, set against vicious bigotry toward Native Americans. Their love is the 'small fateful twist' that forever changes the trajectory of Torie's life. With delicate precision, Read evokes both Colorado's rugged wilderness and the landscapes of her characters' troubled hearts. An auspicious debut."--Kirkus (starred review)

"Lyrical . . . Read, a fifth-generation Coloradan, draws characters and settings with period authenticity, stunning imagery, and deft metaphors."--Booklist

"This soaring, compassionate tale of female resilience is set against a breath-taking picture of our natural world--its trees and mountains and light."--The Independent (UK)

About the Author

Shelley Read's internationally bestselling debut novel, Go as a River, is being translated into over thirty languages and has been optioned for film by Mazur Kaplan in partnership with Fifth Season. She was a senior lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades, where she was a founder of the environment and sustainability major and the PRIME program for at-risk students. She holds degrees in writing and literary studies from the University of Denver and Temple University and is a regular contributor to Crested Butte Magazine and Gunnison Valley Journal. She is a fifth-generation Coloradoan who lives with her family in the Elk Mountains of the Western Slope.