GO AS A RIVER
A novel
by Shelley Read
(Spiegel & Grau, Paperback June 2025)
Novelist Shelley Read has already sold 800,000 copies of her debut hardover book, GO AS A RIVER. The title has just been released in papeback by Spiegel & Grau. It is heartbreaking yet uplifting coming-of-age story of a resilient young woman whose life is changed forever by one chance encounter.
In Authorlink Editor Doris Booth’s chat with the writer, we asked: How do you tackle the profound themes of resilience, loss and the power of nature? What does it takes to bring a novel to life? How do you channel deep emoional truths into your fiction? See what she has to say about writing with authenticity.
In GO AS A RIVER, seventeen-year-old Victoria Nash runs the household on her family’s peach farm in Iola, Colorado—the sole 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. Their chance meeting profoundly and irrevocably alters their young lives, and when tragedy strikes, Victoria flees to the surrounding mountains. In the harsh but beautiful wilderness, she finds themeaning and strength to move forward and rebuild all she has lost, even as the Gunnison River threatens to submerge her home 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 stunning debut about young love, loss, and new beginnings.
Read is a fifth-generation Coloradan who received her MFA in her twenties but then went on to teach literature and environmental studies and raise two kids. In her late 50s, she finally published the novel she’d started many years before. Since its publication in 2023, GO AS A RIVER has become a major national and international success, hitting countless bestseller lists around the globe, sold in thirty-four territories to date, and is in development for film with the Mazur Kaplan Company. It has touched the hearts of hundreds of thousands of readers worldwide.
Shelley was an award-winning senior lecturer at Western Colorado University for nearly three decades, where she taught writing, literature, environmental studies, and honors. She lives with her family in the Elk Mountains of Colorado’s Western Slope.
Praise for the novel:
“Completely unforgettable.”—Bonnie Garmus
*Winner of the 2024 High Plains Book Award
*Winner of the 2023 Reading the West Book Award
* Finalist for the Goodreads Choice Award
*Texas Library Association Lariat List Top Ten
Books
* Indie Next Pick
* Great Group Reads
Selection
* Real Simple Best Books of 2023
*AARP Girlfriends Book Club Pick
* Amazon Best Debuts of 2023
“A literary triumph.”—Denver Post
“An auspicious debut.”—Kirkus (starred review)
“Offers something for everyone.”—Real Simple
“A beautifully written epic set in a Colorado mountaintown.”
—Scientific America
“My #1 book of 2024.”—Dana Perino
“Go as a River is a heart-wrenching coming-of-age story
and a drama of enthralling power”—Women's Prize for Fiction
“A powerful love story with an unforgettable heroine at its heart.”—Sunday Express
“Affecting.”—Publishers Weekly
“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
“Read… draws characters and settings with period authenticity, stunning imagery, and deft metaphors.”—Booklist
GO AS A RIVER is every book club’s must-read novel.
Winner of the High Plains Book Award for Fiction and the Reading the West Book Award for Debut Fiction, GO AS A RIVER is also a Sunday Times bestseller, a Goodreads Choice Award finalist, an Amazon Editors’ Pick for Best Debut Fiction, an Indie Next Pick, and a Colorado Public Radio Books We Love selection, among other national and international accolades.
GO AS A RIVER
by Shelley Read
Spiegel & Grau
On-sale: 6/3/2025
ISBN: 9781954118638
320 Pages
$ 19.00
Paperback Tour
May 23-24/Crested Butte, CO/Mountain Words Fest
Thursday, June 5/Rhinebeck, NY/Oblong Books
Tuesday, June 10/Mystic, CT/Bank Square Book
Wednesday, June 11/Montclair, NJ/Watchung Booksellers
Thursday, June 12/Lyons, CO/Lyon’s Library w/ Boulder Bookstore
Friday, June 13/Estes Park Library w/ MacDonald’s Bookshop
Saturday, June 14/Superior, CO/ Barnes & Noble Opening Book Signing
Monday, June 16/Denver/Tattered Cover
Monday, June 23/Cleveland, OH/Cuyahoga Public Library, Brooklyn Branch
Tuesday, June 24/Ann Arbor, MI/Literati
Thursday, June 26/Naperville, IL/Anderson’s
Friday, June 27/Milwaukee, WI/Boswell Books, 2pm
Oconomowaukee, WI/Books & Company, 7pm
Saturday, June 28/Carmel, IN/Carmel Clay Library Foundation
Monday, June 30/Charleston, SC/Buxton Book @ Lance Hall
Thursday, July 31/Colorado Springs/Pikes Peak Library, East Library
Aug 8-10/Cedaredge, CO/Grand Mesa Writers Symposium, Keynote
September 4/Breckenridge, CO/Colorado Association of Libraries Conference, Keynote
September 26-28/Aspen, CO/Aspen Literary Festival
October 3-6/Kalispell, MT/Flathead River Writers Conference, Keynote
