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 Hardcover – 8 Aug. 2024

For me Elif Shafak is one of the best novelists writing today. This too is good: intricate plot, fascinating characters, timeless themes, a profound humanity. Its elements of the fantastic bewitched this reader. “This story is a truth through which truth breathes”.She begins with a single drop of rain falling on the head of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal in 630 BCE. The same drop is recycled through the novel. It falls as a snowflake on the lips of Arthur in Victorian London, moistens the parched lips of the Hazidi child Narin in Iraq in 2014 and slips as a teardrop from the eye of scientist Zaleekhah in 2018. The narrative weaves together the lives of man, woman and child, east and west, past present and future. It is an elegy to water which flows in and out of all their lives. It gives and it takes. Two mighty rivers, the Thames and the Tigris, link the characters. There is a desperate sadness to much of the story. The trials of Narin are heart-breaking. The final pages pack an emotional punch that takes the breath away.Rivers is a long novel that moves back and forth in time between Zaleekhah, Arthur and Narin. One or two of the supporting characters I found a little weak – well one in particular. The potency of whole picture, the whole truth, is undeniable.Elif signs off her novel to Nisaba. Nisaba was the ancient Mesopotamian goddess of stories.

It is an extraordinary novel, telling inter time shifting narratives under umbrella of the wonderful Epic of Gilgamesh, interlaced with the Memory of Water theory. I loved every word - especially the Gilgamesh pieces.A masterpiece. Thank you Elif Shafak for your writing.

Another wonderful read as usual. Love the easy read a packed with details that get your imagination going as if watching it play out on a screen.

The truth weaved with fiction to create a masterpiece. Loved the combination of timelines and the connection across the globe and generations 5*

Another beautiful, deeply researched and thought provoking book from this amazing author. Thoroughly recommend

An amazing book. Great metaphors, great stories, that came together.

The characters are predictable and one-dimensional, and the writing style uninteresting. The intertwining of the stories comes across as forced. Credit is due to the author for shedding light on the Yazidi massacre—a story that really needs to be told.

Loved this book, the author very nearly lost me when she used the 'exhaling a breath she didn't know she was holding' trope. But the strength and beauty of the authors writing demanded forgiveness.