ARC Review: “The River Keeper and Other Tales”

Book Publish Date: Feb 18, 2025

This book was provided as an ARC through Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

⭐⭐(2.5)

The River Keeper and Other Tales by Nancy Joie Wilkie is a series of seven short stories all taking place in the kingdom of Imlay. The book is fairly short, and I was able to finish it in a single evening. The tales were original, but drew on fairly common archetypes that made them feel familiar, and as I was reading, I found it vaguely reminiscent of reading storybooks from when I was a kid. My favorite story from this collection was “A Dream for a Dream,” which was by far the most unique tale in the collection and the only one that I would have liked to be a full book in and of itself.

Pros:

• The artwork was absolutely lovely and enjoyable.

• It is very uncomplicated and easy to follow. The seven stories are distinct from each other, and can be read independently.

• Recurring themes that connect each story when they are read together that make for both an interesting bit of worldbuilding and a well-communicated overall message.

Cons:

• The second story contains some ableism where a character who cannot hear but uses a form of sign language is called “deaf and dumb,” which, as a hard of hearing person myself, I found quite offensive.

• The worldbuilding is… inconsistent. The first six stories all very clearly took place in the same world, but the last one seemed to take place in the modern world, as the Judeo-Christian universe creation story was brought up, and the protagonist was compared to Jesus.

• There was a lot of telling and not a lot of showing. I found some issues with pacing where things moved so fast I had to go back and figure out what was going on.

Overall I rate it 2.5 stars. While I enjoyed the stories, the ableism in the second piece as well as the pacing issues and worldbuilding inconsistencies knocked down the rating for me.