WOMS: What the River Knows

This week for “What’s on My Shelf,” we’ve got a banger of a mystery full of betrayal and misdeeds and my all-time favourite: mummies! It’s Isabel Ibanez’s What the River Knows!

In What the River Knows, you meet Inez Oliviera, a young woman from a wealthy, upper class family in nineteenth century Argentina, who learns of her parents disappearance to the hot and unforgiving Egyptian desert. Determined to uncover the truth, she sets out from Buenos Aires for Cairo with nothing but her sketchbook, her immutable will, and a magic ring her father sent her just before he vanished. When she arrives, she uncovers even more in ancient secrets long buried beneath the sands, but finds the cost for learning the truth might be more than she’s willing to pay.

Everything about this book is fresh and imaginative and proper representation heavy. It’s the quintessence of a having a non-traditional heroine being written by an underrepresented group. The best part? It’s not forced. It’s so natural in how it feels, how it reads, that you don’t for a second wonder why the heroine, Inez, is speaking with a rich, luscious Argentinian accent instead of a nasal Queen’s British. (At least, that’s how it sounded in my head.) I adored her spunk and wit and determination to not be left out and forgotten on the sidelines. Her palpable struggle to be seen and accepted is poignant and stirring, and easily allows for the reader to empathise with her fight to make things right, even if she makes mistakes.

You might say one of those mistakes is the delectable Whitford Hayes whose dastardly roguish behaviour is reminiscent of all the other great scoundrels before him like Han Solo, and you might be right.

Whitford—or simply Whit—Hayes is like if you took Rick O’Connell but made him even more bitter and jaded and hating the world. He’s wonderful to hate, and even more wonderful to love except you always wonder if maybe you shouldn’t. There’s a lingering doubt in your mind regarding his intentions, for he plays his cards extremely close to his chest. It’s only in the last moment he plays his final hand and everything is revealed. No, literally—it’s like the last page. The epilogue!

I nearly threw my book across the room! But I didn’t. Instead, I took to Instagram where in true modern fashion, I [kindly] exclaimed my fury to Ibanez herself. In short, it was something like, “How dare you!”

This book has the best—and worst—cliffhanger I have read, probably ever, and I am so so SO grateful the second book releases in only 3 months because I am DESPERATE to know what comes next!

If you need a way to beat the heat but still have some of that summer fun-in-the-sun, then join Inez in the Egyptian desert where she digs for secrets of her past and learns that what she always needed she had in front of her all along. (You may or may not regret it afterwards, but do it anyway and join me because my misery needs company.)

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