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A Novel
by Kelly Mustian
From the acclaimed author of The Girls in the Stilt House comes a long-awaited novel both atmospheric and lyrical, a haunting Southern story about memory, family secrets, and fierce and fragile love.
For nearly thirty years, Nell has kept a childhood promise to never reveal what she and Evie found tucked inside a copy of Jane Eyre in their mother's bookcase―a record of Evie's birth naming a stranger as her mother. But lately, Nell has been haunted by hazy memories of their early life in Mississippi, years their reclusive mother, Hazel, has kept shrouded in secrecy. Evie recalls nothing before their house on Clay Mountain in North Carolina, but Nell remembers abrupt moves, odd accommodations, and the rainy night a man in a dark coat and a hat pulled low climbed their porch steps with a very little girl―Evie―then left without her.
In dual storylines, Nell, forty-two in 1971, reaches into the past to uncover dangerous, long-buried secrets, and Becca, a young mother in the early 1930s, presses ahead, each moving toward 1934, the catastrophic year that would forever link them.
From a windswept ghost town long forgotten, to a river house in notorious Natchez Under-the-Hill, to a moody nightclub stage, Evie's other mother emerges from the shadows of Depression-era Mississippi in a story of hardship and perseverance, of betrayal and trust, and of unexpected redemption in a world in which the lines between heroes and culprits are not always clearly drawn.
Overall, what did you think of The River Knows Your Name? (no spoilers, please!)
Like several others have mentioned, I struggled in the beginning keeping all the characters and time periods straight, but eventually I was totally absorbed by this book. Yes, I would definitely recommend this book to others. The descriptions of life during the 30s for Becca and all the others wa...
-Mimi_M
To what audience would you recommend The River Knows Your Name? Is there another book or author you feel has a similar theme or style?
I think this book would promote lively discussion for any reading group. I will certainly recommend it to my Book Club. We like books where "good" people face obstacles and overcome circumstances that are traumatic. We like books where forgiveness is possible. Kelly Mustian's book The Girls in th...
-Ann_H
About the The River Knows Your Name BookBrowse Discussion
Please join BookBrowse in our book club discussion of The River Knows Your Name by Kelly Mustian
-kim.kovacs
What are you reading this week? (3/20/2025)
I am reading Kelly Mustians The River knows your name (of course) a book in the Wings of Fire series. My grandson has "loaned" them to me from his personal library. And RJKlunes The Bones Beneath my Skin. An eclectic mix
-Karen_G
"A well-woven story that also plumbs the depths of the human heart, intertwining the power and wildness of the natural world and the risks people take for love. A novel about both running from the past and running after it, The River Knows Your Name woke me up early and kept me up late." ―Ash Davidson, author of Damnation Spring
"With masterful prose, Kelly Mustian weaves together a generational saga that explores the ties that bind and the forces that seek to tear them apart. The River Knows Your Name is a richly atmospheric tapestry of hidden pasts, resilient spirits, and the human heart's proclivity for tenacity and truth." ―Meagan Church, bestselling author of The Girls We Sent Away and The Last Carolina Girl
"The River Knows Your Name is a captivating tale of love, loss and found family set in the lush and wild Mississippi Delta. Mustian's plucky, determined female characters grip your heart. You won't be able to put the book down until the last puzzle piece of their dual-timeline family mystery clicks into place." ―Emily Matchar, author of In the Shadow of the Greenbrier
"Kelly Mustian is a flat-out master storyteller. With a plot as woven and tumultuous as river current, this story is a profoundly human tale simply dripping with will and strength and heart. Mustian's storytelling insists there is magnificence amidst darkness if we only persevere. I am a fan." —Andrew J. Graff, author of True North and Raft of Stars
This information about The River Knows Your Name was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Kelly Mustian is the USA Today bestselling author of The Girls in the Stilt House and The River Knows Your Name. She is the recipient of the Mississippi Library Association's 2023 Author Award for Fiction, and The Girls in the Stilt House was shortlisted for the 2022 Crook's Corner Book Prize for best debut novel set in the American South. Her work has appeared in numerous literary journals and commercial magazines. Originally from Mississippi, she currently lives in North Carolina.
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