River Becomes Shadow (Taggak Journey Book 2) by Anne M Smith-Nochasak
Reviewed by Heather McBriarty
In post-apocalyptic Nova Scotia, former veterinarian Andrea finds herself one of three fugitives from the Elect and their vicious rebel hunters. The bombs have fallen; the world is burning up, and the Elect are rising to control the few survivors. But their methods are not kind, and their religion is psychotic.
“River Becomes Shadow is Anne M. Smith-Nochsak’s second installment of her Taggak Journey trilogy, and it is as gorgeously written as the first, River Faces North.”
River is the 12-year-old who has the chance of bringing green back to a devastated world, if only she can survive the peril-ridden journey from her white grandmother’s house to where her parents and Indigenous grandmother are preparing the resistance. Andrea, with no skills but her medical background, is reluctantly recruited as one of the companions on River’s journey and the keeper of the story of the resistance. River and her guide Tag can effortlessly run through the space between moments, in the Shadows where the rebel hunters can’t see them. Andrea, pulled along with them, feels more like a liability, useless, a hindrance; she struggles with why she is needed and what she can contribute. And yet it is through her that this story is preserved for us, her audience of 40 years in the future.
River Becomes Shadow is Anne M. Smith-Nochsak’s second installment of her Taggak Journey trilogy, and it is as gorgeously written as the first, River Faces North. Smith-Nochasak is at heart a poet, and her prose reflects her agile wordplay. Her strength is painting scenes and infusing them with emotion; her characters are fully fleshed, unique and alive. Andrea, as narrator, immerses the reader in a troubled mind, a wounded soul struggling against a role she most reluctantly inhabits. While a darker book than her first, and without as much of River’s grandmother Flo’s dry humour (although Flo does make an appearance), it is still filled with a lyrical beauty. There is love for the land, respect for the First Nations and their connections to it that comes from a deeply personal place. The phrase “literary, poetic, dytopian fiction” seems contradictory, and yet Smith-Nochsak has achieved a balance here, weaving the magical and fantastical with gritty brutality and just a glimmer of hope, in prose that sings.
About the Author
Anne M. Smith-Nochasak is the author of four novels. Her first, A Canoer of Shorelines (FriesenPress, 2021), was recognized as one of The Miramichi Reader’s Best of Fiction in 2021. The Ice Widow (FriesenPress, 2022) was shortlisted for the Whistler Independent Book Awards in 2023 and a semi-finalist for the North Street Book Prize. River Faces North (FriesenPress, 2024), the first book in the Taggak Journey trilogy, was a 2024 Seaboard Review of Books “Book Pick”. She is currently a member of the Writers Federation of Nova Scotia and the Canadian Authors Association.
While she grew up in Nova Scotia, Anne taught in northern communities for many years. She now lives in rural Nova Scotia in an area not unlike Flo’s swamp, with logging trails and rivers to explore. When she’s not writing, Anne enjoys hiking routes like the ones her characters might travel.
About the Reviewer
Heather McBriarty is the author of the non-fiction account of the First World War, Somewhere in Flanders: Letters from the Front and a novel of the “Great War” Amid the Splintered Trees. She is a blogger, reviewer and served as a juror for the 2023 Atlantic Book Awards. She is a retired Medical Radiation Technologist, a doting grandmother, and an avid sailor. She lives by the sea in historic Saint John, New Brunswick, Canada.
Book Details
Publisher : FriesenPress
Publication date : Aug. 27 2025
Language : English
Print length : 234 pages
ISBN-10 : 1038348773
ISBN-13 : 978-1038348777
Thank you, Heather. Flo Hardy would definitely agree with your assessment of the Elect. I really appreciate the depth of your analysis here.