Name: House of Echoes
ISBN: 9780804178112

Brendan Duffy

Frustrating career setbacks and a heartbreaking diagnosis challenge the lives of Ben and Caroline, who after starting over in a nostalgic new hometown encounter disconcerting secrets that threaten their survival. A first novel.

A Novel

House of Echoes

shellybn

This book has more depictions of animal evisceration than I needed to read in a lifetime. It also has enough vivid descriptions of animal entrails smeared, smooshed, and drug out over the landscape to gross out most average people. However, I did enjoy the story very much. On page 315 it says "It would be interesting, he thought, to write all this down one day." I like to think that the events in the book really happened to the author, and that the book is the result of him writing it all down. It is just kind of fun to think that it actually happened. I enjoyed this one enough to start reading "The Storm King" right after I finished this one.

Jessica Nottingham

I think House of Echoes is best summed up by one of its lines:
"Ben had wanted a house with a story, but this one had too many of them."
 
Have you ever walked up to a building, and just felt a sense of unease? A little needle of fear and discomfort that eases its way into your brain, even when you try to push it away as nonsense? Books like this remind me to pay attention to that feeling. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Very little is as shiny as it seems on the surface.
 
Brendan Duffy has delivered a solid, and rather addictive read in House of Echoes. From the first page, I was hooked into the lives of Ben and his family. Attempting to flee their old lives that were falling apart, they seize the opportunity to overhaul a huge, rambling homestead as an inn. Oh, and wouldn't you know it, they got it for a steal! We all know that never ends well. I was so anxious to see how things panned out.
 
As it turns out, this book is a beautiful slow burn of a read. It eases you in, building atmosphere and tension, until you just know things are coming to a breaking point. I think I was expecting a bit more action when I started but, truth be told, I liked this much better. Duffy is excellent at building dread. He started dropping little clues as to what was coming, and I didn't even notice. I almost want to go back and read this again just to pick on on the nuances I missed. This is a gorgeous psychological, suspense thriller. Just gorgeous.
 
Apologies for the vague review, but trust me when I say that you don't want spoilers! This is something to be savored. To be read on a hazy evening, snuggled under a blanket, preferably by a crackling fire. While the ending wasn't quite what I wanted, it still wrapped things up nicely. House of Echoes is a solid read. I'd absolutely recommend you give it a place on your reading list.

House of Echoes A Novel

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