Blog Tour: All Rivers Run Free by Natasha Carthew

All the Rivers Run Free was a story that still has not let me go since the very last sentence. It has been one of the most beautifully written books I have ever read. Hopefully my following review will do it justice.

REVIEW

Ia is a damaged sole. She is isolated from those around her for being different and spends her days in and around her caravan on the Cornish coast, which she shares with her brute of a husband and cousin. Ravaged by floods, they are cut off from Europe and subject to gangs and military rule. In the thirteen yeas Ia has never been able to have a child of her own, so when she finds a girl on the coast, she rescues her. This girl may be the key to Ia's rescue in return. This story really was unlike anything else I have read before. It has an unusual but distinct writing style where sentences and in turn Ia's thoughts run into each other, but it didn't take long to fall into the book's pattern. It almost felt like a long poem with descriptions that at times took my breath away. I have never really thought about it before but there are books you read and enjoy and then there are books that you feel like you experience first hand and All the Rivers Run free was exactly that.  I was completely immersed in this futuristic world which felt so real. Every little detail, every thought, every feeling, I felt it, I experienced it. A book has never touched me so much as this. There was even something strangely magical about it, like when the oranges wash up on the beach, the girl and the compass. There was something there guiding Ia and taking her away from the life she thought she was stuck with. Even though the story has a melancholy tone throughout, I didn't want to leave Ia and her journey across the Cornwall coast. Ia is a character who has been written so that you will route for her the whole way through. Her story is a raw one, but despite her sufferings, Ia is stronger than she thinks. She is also still kind and caring and somehow manages to take everything that comes at her in her stride.  A beautiful, atmospheric novel that took me right to this futuristic coast of Cornwall.  All Rivers Run Free is out now

This review was part of the All Rivers Run Free Blog tour