Go as a River: A Novel

INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

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

“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 author, 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

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

Victoria encounters Wil by accident on a street corner, a meeting that profoundly alters either one of their young lives, unknowingly igniting as much passion as danger. When tragedy strikes, Victoria leaves the only life she has ever known. She flees into the surrounding mountains where she struggles to live to tell the tale 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, at the same time as the Gunnison River threatens to submerge her place of origin―its ranches, farms, and the beloved peach orchard that has been in her circle of relatives 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, in spite of everything, 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.