Discover Well-Read Black Girl Books and the projects reshaping publishing →

Book Summary and Reviews of It's All River by Carla Madeira

It's All River by Carla Madeira

It's All River

A Novel

by Carla Madeira

  • Published:
  • Jun 2026, 176 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

The seductive and shocking story of a twisted love triangle, It's All River flows through the rapids of humanity.

"Lucy was a virgin-whore. A dreamer. She wanted to test her power. She wanted men to fast for her, to grovel, to pay tithes."

Lusted after by everyone she meets, Lucy is the town's most deviant and desired whore―and proud of it. But there is only one man who has captured her attention: the somber, ever-suffering Venâncio, a carpenter with a dark secret―and a wife. Once upon a time, Venâncio and Dalva, his angelic teenage sweetheart, were a shining example of marital bliss and the envy of all their neighbors―until tragedy left them estranged in their own home.

But Venâncio doesn't desire Lucy the way other men in town do. In fact, he wants nothing to do with her. And if Lucy fails in seducing Venâncio, what becomes of her? Consumed by an insatiable need for Venâncio and driven mad by a growing obsession with Dalva, Lucy makes a decision that forever changes their three lives.

Introducing one of Brazil's most daring and best-selling authors to English-language readers, and masterfully translated by Alison Entrekin, It's All River is a taut, provocative allegory of violence and forgiveness that grips and stuns the whole way through.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Madeira, translated into English by Entrekin, is at her best...A feverish, obsessive, filthy book—and a terribly fun one." —Kirkus Reviews

"Horrifying yet tender, hypnotic and bursting with life, It's All River has all the makings of a modern classic." ―Virginia Feito, author of Victorian Psycho and Mrs. March

This information about It's All River 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.

Reader Reviews

Click here and be the first to review this book!

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Carla Madeira

Carla Madeira is one of Brazil's best-selling authors, her novels having sold a combined one million copies. Her debut, Tudo é rio (It's All River), topped the bestseller charts for two years and has been published or is forthcoming in seven countries.

More Author Information

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Read-Alikes

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $60 for 12 months or $20 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!
Win This Book
Win Theo of Golden

Theo of Golden by Allen Levi

One spring morning, a stranger arrives in the small southern city of Golden. No one knows where he has come from…or why…

Enter

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
A Pair of Aces
by Marie Benedict, Victoria Christopher Murray
Two women on opposite sides of the law team up to bring down gangster Lucky Luciano in this gripping novel.

Members Recommend

  • Book Jacket
    Somebody Worth Killing
    by Jessica Payne
    Meet Nadia Davis, loving mom, devoted wife, secret assassin… and she needs a babysitter.
  • Book Jacket
    Summer's Never Over
    by Darby Bozeman
    A woman revisits a Southern summer camp where a counselor's death may not have been an accident.
  • Book Jacket
    The Reimagining of Thornwood House
    by Jaleigh Johnson
    A witch and her ward discover a magical walking house and find the true meaning of home.
  • Book Jacket
    Feast
    by Catherine Kurtz
    In 19th-century France, a girl with a magical taste becomes a duc’s poison taster amid nobility and danger.
Book
Trivia
  • Book Trivia

    Can you name the title?

    Test your book knowledge with our daily trivia challenge!

Wordplay

Solve this clue:

The C is A R

and be entered to win..

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.