Books like Once Upon a River
12 books with a reading profile close to Once Upon a River by Diane Setterfield. Balanced in tone; a moderate read.
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1
The Deep
narrative, literary
Inspired by a song by the group clipping., this novella follows the wajinru, water-breathing descendants of pregnant African women thrown overboard during the Atlantic slave trade.
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2
The Water Dancer
narrative, literary
Hiram Walker is born into bondage on a Virginia plantation, the son of an enslaved woman and the white man who owns them both.
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3
The Spear Cuts Through Water
narrative, literary
In the Strangled Empire, three oppressive princes rule through terror and magical birthrights under their father, the Old Emperor.
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4
The Snow Child
by Eowyn Ivey
narrative, literary
In 1920s Alaska, homesteaders Jack and Mabel struggle with the isolation of the frontier and the grief of their childless marriage.
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5
Swamplandia!
narrative, literary
Set in the sinking geography of the Florida Everglades, this novel follows the Bigtree family, a clan of alligator wrestlers struggling to maintain their failing theme park.
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6
When Women Were Dragons
narrative, literary
During the 1955 Mass Dragoning, hundreds of thousands of American women spontaneously transformed into dragons and took to the skies, leaving behind families and lives of forced domesticity.
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7
Who Fears Death
narrative, literary
In a post-apocalyptic Sudan, the light-skinned Nuru people systematically oppress the dark-skinned Okeke.
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8
The Ocean at the End of the Lane
by Neil Gaiman
narrative, literary
When a middle-aged man returns to his childhood home for a funeral, he wanders to the neighboring farmhouse where he met Lettie Hempstock decades earlier.
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9
Death: The High Cost of Living
by Neil Gaiman
narrative, literary
Once every century, Death takes on human form for a single day to understand the lives of those she takes.
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10
The Lions of Al-Rassan
narrative, literary
Set in a reimagined medieval Spain, the story traces the collision of three rival cultures: the Asharites, the Jaddites, and the Kindath.
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11
Tigana
narrative, literary
Set in a Mediterranean-inspired peninsula called the Palm, the narrative centers on a group of rebels attempting to overthrow two rival sorcerer-kings, Brandin of Ygrath and Alberico of Barbentain.
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12
Juniper & Thorn
by Ava Reid
narrative, literary
Set in a fictionalized nineteenth-century Odessa, this gothic fairy tale follows Marlinchen, the youngest of three sisters who live under the suffocating control of their father, a wizard named Zmey.
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