There are Rivers in the Sky: The beautiful Sunday Times bestseller from the author of The Island of Missing Trees & BBC Between the Covers Book Club pick

I've read several books by this author and have enjoyed them all so was keen to read her latest when it was published in paperback. Whenever I hear Elif Shafak is being interviewed I always try to listen as I love her voice - it has a gorgeous velvety quality that always sounds soothing. This book was first published in 2024. It has 470 pages split into five parts. We see the story from the perspective of three (four?) characters who take turns to be the main focus of the narrative. The writing is beautiful and you can sink into it - soaking up very glorious detail. And detail is a huge part of this author's style, taking time to show us in luxurious depth. Along with seeing, you also smell, feel, hear and sometimes even taste what is around. As you are reading there is a temptation to speed ahead to find out more but take your time and go with the flow of the narrative. Every so often the author gives lists of words which always seem to demand that you slow down and that will make the book seem at its best. Amongst the rich language there is also plenty of perceptive observations from the natural world and the humans that inhabit it. I often paused to contemplate a particular sentence. This is a perfect book to read slowly and thoughtfully - encouraging heart rate and blood pressure to reduce. Wound through the main narrative there is much for the reader to learn. The portrait of Victorian life is very visual and the Mesopotamian history is fascinating. We get to know each of the three characters gradually. All are in their separate worlds and very different from each other. Time and locations become closer as connections are revealed showing the beauty of humanity if we take the time to look. Of course, water is used for many metaphors and remains as a strong theme throughout the novel. I loved researching some of the ancient stories as I worked my way through the book - it is almost unbelievable that this civilisation existed such a long time ago but the proof is there. The book is a perfect example of fiction's ability to explain facts. At the end of the book, the author opens up her research and tells how she has used real documents by bending their stories for the narrative of the novel. I love this book and eagerly await her next one.

Was a book club choice that was well received by all. The mix of fact and fiction needed checking out so reading did not flow easily. Interesting points made and learnt something.

A beautifully written book that is so wonderfully intertwined it is both extraordinarily grand, yet intricately beautiful. The snippets here and there that call back to other parts of the book shouldn’t take you by surprise, but they do and you find yourself smiling at how simple, yet beautifully created these links are. A stunning journey through time and history. Read this book. You will not be disappointed.

I haven't read anything so captivatingly beautiful in a very long time. It the first book by Elif Shafak I have read and I was mesmerised from start to finish. I devoured each chapter, eagerly following the stories of its three main characters, connected through the memory of water. At the same time, I dreaded reaching the end, not wanting to break the spell it had cast on my imagination. Superbly crafted and beautifully written. Loved every word of it. Thank you Elif Shafak for your exceptional storytelling.

Learning to love all her books once I got used to her writing style. Well worth a read.

This was a book club choice - yet again, an unusual story from outside my normal field of reference. There are three tales told in parallel: Arthur in Victorian London, Narin from Turkey in 2014, and Zaleekhah from London in 2018. Seemingly unrelated at first, the tales intertwine. Initially, there's the idea that they're linked by a single raindrop, which travels around the water cycle, crossing continents and centuries. This conceit more or less disappears once the three tales have got going, though a scientific-looking table at the end of the book tracks its journey over the millennia. There's an overarching theme of water and rivers - how we need them, how they're abused, how they're part of our physical and emotional landscape - and the author has clearly done a lot of research. Unfortunately, most of it appears to have ended up in the book (which is supposed to be a work of fiction). I was pleased to immediately recognise the significance of the trip that Arthur makes to Broad Street on p153, and to predict what was going to happen as a result of it, but felt it didn't necessarily make the character or setting more realistic. By contrast, there's a harrowing account of a contemporary event beginning on p344 which is direct, distressing and something I'd had no idea about (the author points out in an afterword that this "happened in front of the eyes of the entire world" [p478], suggesting that the world didn't pay it much attention). Whilst I felt that its exposition was admirable, I think its impact was diluted by all the other subjects (including ancient history, plundered artwork, climate change, poverty) which the author has drawn upon, and transferred into, her book. Some niggles: I don't think objects dropped into the Thames in London "will keep travelling to Oxford and beyond" [p21], since Oxford is upstream from London (and the river is only tidal up to Teddington, downstream from Oxford). I thought that the dialogue was clunky in places - for example, Arthur's mother complains on p26 "I cannot afford to keep this little 'un. I can hardly get myself enough coppers for my own food. I am starving hungry most of the time" - which looks inauthentic (why "cannot" instead of "can't", especially if "little one" has been contracted?), and when an old woman is thinking about what to name him on p28, she says, "I think it should be something rather brave and grand. Yes, that's right, a name worthy of a noble", which means he gets named - for no really clear reason - "King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums". Later on [p143], Narin's uncle, describing his exiled life as a member of the Yazidi faith in Germany says, "They think we are the descendants of Yazid, the Tyrant of Karbala [...] But we have nothing to do with any of that. Our name solely means 'descendants of God'. Our roots go all the way back to Ancient Mesopotamia". Fair enough, but he's talking to his wife, his brother and his brother's mother-in-law, all of whom are Yazidi and who have known all this for all their lives. Dialogue like this looks more like exposition; as does what Nen says to Zaleekhah on p365: "I guess what water is to you, history is to me: an enigma too vast to comprehend, something far more important than my own little life, and yet, at some level, also deeply personal. Does that make sense?" Perhaps, but it doesn't look like anything a person would say. At the other extreme, when Nen identifies her brother to Zaleekhah on p238, she says "The youngest. I have four more", Zaleekhah responds "You have five brothers?", which appears superfluous. And when Helen has good news on p398, Zaleekhah says, "Fantastic! I'm so happy for you - and all the family", and Helen replies "Oh, thank you! I'm still processing the news", which looks somewhat anodyne. There's a certain amount of overwriting - thus, the breakfast on p140 consists of "fried green peppers with yoghurt sauce, sour-cherry jam, sweet-chili marmalade, glazed halloumi and dried figs, bulgur-stuffed aubergines with tamarind, currants and pine nuts, pistachio tahini halva, hummus with flatbread, scrambled eggs with red pepper, cheese with wild garlic, and the first batch of honey from the beehive, topped with clotted cream", which seems to be a superabundance for just seven people (who don't appear to be wealthy). Whilst adding local colour, lists like this - together with the shuttling back and forth between the three tales - make this into a long book (my copy has 483 pages) and, towards the end, I began thinking it would have been more incisive if there had been a concentration on just one of the tales. Also, in contrast to the longueurs of the preceding chapters, the ending - which, naturally, tries to bring the strands together - feels abruptly forced and somewhat ludicrous, leaving (I felt) several questions unanswered about the characters. Some interesting ideas, but I thought the whole was less than the sum of its parts.

This is a story that needed to be told & I am left awestruck & horrified in equal measure that this latest genocide occurred in 2014 & I knew nothing about it !!! How is that even possible & yet despite our many channels of media we are only told what the “powers that be “ decide to tell us us !!! It shocks & appalls me that 3,000 Yazidi women & girls are missing into slavery now !!! How is this possible ???? This is a beautifully written story of love & passion, compassion & total brutality …. We need to be aware of these stories of how people are abused in the name of religious beliefs cloaked in greed & ignorance. I wish I had the vocabulary to more eloquently express how this book has left me feeling so if you reading this review I urge you to read this book ….

I loved this book. It deals with so many things. You will come away a better and more knowledgeable person. It is not always easy to get into because of the many strands, but well worth it. Many of its main characters are loveable, especially the Yazidis - so often the Pariahs of the Near East. I will not spoil the plot, but here are 2 quotes which have much relevance today. "How can anyone assume they will please the Creator by hurting his Creation?" "And what is passion if not a restlessness of the heart, yearning to surpass its limits, like a river overflowing its banks" I am resolved to read the Gilgamesh Epic.

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak is a beautifully layered novel that flows across time, memory, and geography like the rivers it evokes. Shafak gently weaves history, mythology, and the human longing for belonging, offering a rich glimpse into Middle Eastern culture, spirituality, and storytelling traditions. The characters feel deeply human, carrying the weight of history and identity. By the end, it leaves a quiet book hangover—that lingering feeling where the story stays with you, like an echo of distant waters and ancient lands. Poetic, thoughtful, and deeply immersive. 🌊📚

This book is beautifully crafted combining water, history and the lives of its characters in illuminating prose. The author draws us deep into history, ancient and modern, while setting a descriptive stage at every turn. Highly recommend this book!

Imperdibile!!!!

Evidently, the author conducted extensive research while writing this book, and that is undeniably impressive. However, the result feels like an overwhelming regurgitation of all that research—every fact, note, and piece of knowledge the author gathered seems to have been crammed into the book. This approach makes the reading experience, firstly, quite dull, and secondly, detrimental to the storytelling and character development. The book suffers from a lack of good editing. Much of the content on Mesopotamian history is repetitive and, frankly, boring. By the end, I found myself increasingly irritated by yet another story about water this, goddess that, Gilgamesh this, and Gilgamesh that, all lacking depth or purpose. The same artifacts—clay tablets, Lamassu, book on Nineveh etc.—pop up relentlessly in nearly every paragraph. I get it: clay tablets and Lamassu are significant. But must every character encounter them, dream about them, love them, own them, dig them up, or draw them? By the book’s conclusion, I half expected a Lamassu to be served at Uncle Malik’s dinner on a clay tablet. The characters are underdeveloped and feel two-dimensional, serving primarily as placeholders for the barrage of research, facts, and stories crammed into the pages. There’s little room for the characters to breathe or come alive. Only Arthur offers any meaningful insight into his life, his experiences, and his motivations. The rest are bland and, at times, outright annoying (which feels harsh to say, given the tragedy of Narim’s life). They offer little in terms of thoughts, dialogue, or purpose. Zalikah gets up, eats breakfast, looks out the window, runs, and is depressed. Narim watches flies and eats food lovingly prepared by her grandmother while we’re reminded for the hundredth time that they are healers despised by others. I understood that the first time—no need for endless repetition. The King of Nineveh makes a fleeting, meaningless appearance with no insight into his story. Most characters are impossibly virtuous, so saintly and tragic that it becomes grating. There’s also little connection between them. The shared elements—the drop of water, the Lamassu, clay tablets, lapis lazuli, and the recurring book—feel contrived and, frankly, unbelievable. Then there’s the book’s central premise—the drop of water—which is absurd. A single drop of water doesn’t travel through space and time. A drop contains about 1,670,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules, which will never come together again in the same way. The concept tying the characters with a drop of water is, quite honestly, nonsense. Other inconsistencies should have been caught by a good editor. For example, milk dripping from newborn Arthur is biologically implausible—he would have drunk a few drops of colostrum at most. Baking biscuits in the oven for 40 minutes? That suggests the author hasn’t baked anything herself. And an infant remembering their own birth? Not possible, no matter how genius or savant the baby might be. The book is chaotic. The extensive research would have been better left in the background, allowing more focus on the characters and their stories. Narim’s tragic history takes 200 pages of flower-smelling and water-pondering to unfold, but the actual tragedy is presented in just a few pages. What a lost opportunity. Zalikah and her friend contribute little beyond drinking lavender coffee (mentioned at least five times), drawing Lamassu, tatooing ancient symbols and baking cakes—not enough to sustain good literature. Malik’s family is barely fleshed out, and we learn nothing meaningful about the King or the everyday lives of Nineveh’s people. Leila seems erratic and one-dimensional, defined only by sleepwalking and divining. What truly binds these characters together? The answer, it seems, is nothing substantial. In summary, this book felt like an over-researched, sprawling collection of facts that ultimately amounted to very little.

Wonderful book!