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Echo Lake
Thirty-something Emily Collins inherits her recently murdered aunt's house, deciding to move to Heartshorne, Oklahoma, to claim it and confront her family's dark past after her dead mother begins speaking to her in dreams, propelling this gothic, neo-noir thriller toward terrifying revelations of murderous small-town justice when a horrible community secret is revealed through the supernatural pull of Echo Lake.
280 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 30, 2014
7 people are currently reading
940 people want to read
About the author
Letitia Trent
21 books84 followersLetitia Trent's books include the novels Almost Dark and Echo Lake, the poetry collection One Perfect Bird, and the chapbooks The Women in Charge and You aren't in this movie. Her work has appeared in 32 poems, Fence, Black Warrior Review, Diode, Smokelong Quarterly, and Sou'Wester, among others. Trent's short story, Wilderness, was nominated for a Shirley Jackson award and included in Best Horror of the Year Volume 8, edited by Ellen Datlow. Trent is part of the horror podcast The Brood. She lives in Eureka Springs, Arkansas, with her husband, son, and three black cats.
Photo by K Michelle Johnson
Photo by K Michelle Johnson
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
April 2, 2016
Rating: 4.5* of five
The Publisher Says: Thirty-something Emily Collins inherits her recently murdered aunt's house, deciding to move to Heartshorne, Oklahoma, to claim it and confront her family's dark past after her dead mother begins speaking to her in dreams, propelling this gothic, neo-noir thriller toward terrifying revelations of murderous small-town justice when a horrible community secret is revealed through the supernatural pull of Echo Lake.
My Review: is an imprint of the newish press,Curbside Splendor. All part of a Chicago blooming of publishing talent, laden with the starter jobs that publishers and editors need so much.
Here's the usual rub: Amateurs are the decision makers and frequently they don't have mentors or cicerones. And now here this: To my melting happiness, [ECHO LAKE] has trimmed these ordinary issues far, far down and has risen to higher levels than any other first-time author could reasonably ask for.
The plot is a juicy one; the characters feel more vigorous and buzzy-bizzy than I, a real corporeal being, than I can even pretend to occupy.
At $15.95 USD, this eerie and suspenseful exploration of solitary life is a terrific value. Make a dent in your loneliness, read this book, and remember how it all began.
The Publisher Says: Thirty-something Emily Collins inherits her recently murdered aunt's house, deciding to move to Heartshorne, Oklahoma, to claim it and confront her family's dark past after her dead mother begins speaking to her in dreams, propelling this gothic, neo-noir thriller toward terrifying revelations of murderous small-town justice when a horrible community secret is revealed through the supernatural pull of Echo Lake.
My Review: is an imprint of the newish press,Curbside Splendor. All part of a Chicago blooming of publishing talent, laden with the starter jobs that publishers and editors need so much.
Here's the usual rub: Amateurs are the decision makers and frequently they don't have mentors or cicerones. And now here this: To my melting happiness, [ECHO LAKE] has trimmed these ordinary issues far, far down and has risen to higher levels than any other first-time author could reasonably ask for.
The plot is a juicy one; the characters feel more vigorous and buzzy-bizzy than I, a real corporeal being, than I can even pretend to occupy.
At $15.95 USD, this eerie and suspenseful exploration of solitary life is a terrific value. Make a dent in your loneliness, read this book, and remember how it all began.
February 7, 2017
3.5, rounded up to 4*
ECHO LAKE, by Letitia Trent is a very atmospheric, and at times, quite poetic, story. Emily Collins is a woman who was living life in an almost "vacant" sense. ". . . she was there, but she wasn't quite there". Trent jumps right into the story, with a great-aunt (whom Emily never knew existed), and a cheating boyfriend that prompts Emily to move forward without further--if any--thought.
Enter the town of Heartshorne.
"When something happens to one of their own in Heartshorne, they do something about it."
There are a lot of missing gaps that get filled in along the way. Emily's mother, Connie, never told her anything about the town she grew up in . . . or why she left it behind. Of course, at the heart of everything Emily begins to unravel is Echo Lake, itself. The "man-made" body of water is an enigma that nobody seems willing to openly acknowledge, except that they should keep their children--and themselves--away from it.
". . . The ones who didn't know didn't want to know and the ones who were still innocent were being taught how not to hear."
I found this to be a very fast-paced and enjoyable story, overall. Why the 3.5 as opposed to a solid 4 star rating then? Although others may have no problems with this, one of the things I simply couldn't get used to in this style was the lack of quotations whenever dialog was involved. In some cases, it was easy enough to figure out who was speaking, yet in others, I wasn't sure at first if the words were being "spoken", or merely thought internally. As I stated, this might not matter in the least to other readers, but it never stopped bothering me throughout the course of the novel.
As my first read from author Letitia Trent, I would definitely pick up another book by her.
Recommended!
ECHO LAKE, by Letitia Trent is a very atmospheric, and at times, quite poetic, story. Emily Collins is a woman who was living life in an almost "vacant" sense. ". . . she was there, but she wasn't quite there". Trent jumps right into the story, with a great-aunt (whom Emily never knew existed), and a cheating boyfriend that prompts Emily to move forward without further--if any--thought.
Enter the town of Heartshorne.
"When something happens to one of their own in Heartshorne, they do something about it."
There are a lot of missing gaps that get filled in along the way. Emily's mother, Connie, never told her anything about the town she grew up in . . . or why she left it behind. Of course, at the heart of everything Emily begins to unravel is Echo Lake, itself. The "man-made" body of water is an enigma that nobody seems willing to openly acknowledge, except that they should keep their children--and themselves--away from it.
". . . The ones who didn't know didn't want to know and the ones who were still innocent were being taught how not to hear."
I found this to be a very fast-paced and enjoyable story, overall. Why the 3.5 as opposed to a solid 4 star rating then? Although others may have no problems with this, one of the things I simply couldn't get used to in this style was the lack of quotations whenever dialog was involved. In some cases, it was easy enough to figure out who was speaking, yet in others, I wasn't sure at first if the words were being "spoken", or merely thought internally. As I stated, this might not matter in the least to other readers, but it never stopped bothering me throughout the course of the novel.
As my first read from author Letitia Trent, I would definitely pick up another book by her.
Recommended!
January 4, 2015
Deliciously Soft Suspense. I so appreciate and admire quiet horror, literary horror, a story that haunts, that is atmospheric and has a dark lurking presence. Echo Lake is a story that has these qualities. This dark fiction is a slow coming-of-age novel set within the framework of supernatural mystery. Author Letitia Trent’s poetic talents shine through in her lovely prose, as many readers will admire her pages of descriptions, metaphors, and highly detailed imagery that she so expertly crafts. Applause, applause! There are lots of flashbacks and back-story here about Emily and her dead mom Connie. As mother/daughter relationships go, this one is certainly typical with abandonment and thwarted love issues. Emily is a 30-year-old-woman who leaves her cheating boyfriend and a dull job to move into a house she’s inherited from her dead aunt in Heartshorne, OK. Echo Lake itself holds some kind of evil greenish mist over the water, the town, and the people: murders, kidnappings, missing children, tarot card readings, and intrigue fuel the plot that is like a meandering river which flows from present to past, round and round and round it goes in deliciously soft suspense. Poor Emily, though, who has the emotional immaturity of an insecure 19-year old, struggles with daydreams, imaginations, family history, and her dead mom speaking to her in dreams while she attempts to discover the cause of the murders as well as her own identity—and her mom’s history in Heartshorne. If you love stream-of-consciousness narrative, it’s plentiful here and nicely done. Some of this went a little overboard, but that’s just me. One thing I didn’t like was the omission of quotation marks for the characters’ direct dialogue. What is the literary advantage in choosing to violate this useful punctuation standard? I ask this because I’m a copy editor and author of supernatural mysteries. At first I thought it was just a pretentious gimmick by the author to be different. Then I wondered if the author was attempting to imitate Cormac McCarthy’s rebellious punctuation style (gosh, what first-time novelist would attempt that?). By the middle of the novel, this punctuation device became tedious and annoying. I had to reread passages to clarify between when the character was thinking the sentences (internal dialogue) or speaking the sentences. Tricky and distracting. Further, the characters’ dialogue read as second hand as if paraphrased, creating a distance that flattened the characters into one weakened monotone voice. Sorry, but I have to say that Echo Lake was not any better for the lack of quotation marks. In fact, I think it deadened the characters, as they didn't really come alive on the page. The omission proved unnatural reading and had no merit stylistically or artfully for this horror novel (hence the three stars). What the heck is wrong with these tiny quotation marks anyway? According to best-selling writer Noah Lukeman (A Dash of Style) he says the quotation mark “… is unique and highly visible … as near perfect as a punctuation mark could hope to be … invented in the first place because there was a need to help clearly indicate dialogue.”
I received this novel free from the publisher for a fair and honest review.
I received this novel free from the publisher for a fair and honest review.
April 4, 2016
Echo Lake may be a great American novel. In all but a few places, the writing is evocative and richly descriptive. Not only are the characters richly drawn, but the landscape as well. The titular body of water breathes, lives, almost as if it has a will of its own.
I don't want to recount or divulge the plotline, but there is a section where Emily is discovering what is known about an incident that involved her then-teenaged mother. Emily has learned of this event only after her mother has died and she has come to live in her mother's hometown. Throughout her life, her mother had only cursory words for Emily about her early life.
As readers, we learn what Emily learns about the event through her meetings with friends and acquaintances of her mom. These expository chapters are alternated with chapters describing the actual event as the mother experienced it. It was an engaging technique, knowing what the characters could only guess at, even suddenly feeling an urge to fill in the blanks for Emily.
If it truly is, Echo Lake is a great American novel because there is a horror that all experience, The source of that horror cannot be faced and mitigated until it is confronted. To address it directly risks too much, requires too much effort, too much time, too many resources. In the day to day routines, the daily grind, it becomes easier to adjust to the horror, protect yourself as best you can from its presence. Echo Lake could be Global Warming, Gun Control, The Military Industrial Complex, or the neighbor at your apartment complex that always parks straddling two spaces.
I don't know who else saw Peter Jackson's "King Kong", but the production lost all credibility with me early on. There's a scene when we first see Kong, when Naomi Watts is tied with heavy vines in the jungle outside the the village as an offering to him. Kong comes. Naomi struggles at the sight of this beast, wrenching her arms this way and that in an effort to break free. She can't and Kong enfolds her in his giant paw. Now this is where I have trouble: Kong holds her and with a quick twist of his wrist, the vines snap from the poles that had held her. No one else seemed to care that such an action in real life would snap her arms, not the vines. I may be the only person insisting on believability, even in films about impossibly enormous apes.
So, in Echo Lake, when Emily moves into the house her aunt left her and contemplates the freshly painted walls with lighter spots where the pictures were removed, I think there's too much writing going on here. Or not enough. I paint apartments. Fresh paint would cover up those unbleached rectangles, unless there is some other reason for it, which, in that case, needs to be elucidated. Then, at the end, after torrential rain and the swollen lake of the denouement, Emily stirs from a week of fever and recovery and steps outside: “The grass crunched beneath her shoes, dried and fragile from the long, hot summer.” That is not how I imagine grass after the rains and flooding describes in the pages preceding. Shit like that is insulting.
When I first picked up my copy of Echo Lake, I thought I held the perfect paperback book. I wondered if there were some formula (length times width divided by number of pages or something) that determined optimum book size. Surely, the size of the reader's hands would factor into it. The dimensions are slightly shorter and slightly wider that an average trade paperback (roughly a half inch, both ways). And I know, books come in all sorts of "typical" dimensions. Echo Lake was perfect, in this respect.
In addition to the glaring logical errors that an adroit editor might have flagged, there were several typographical mistakes that inhibited the flow of the prose. This wasn't simple misspellings where a reader might notice the mistake but still not lose the meaning of the sentence. There were a couple of instances where whole words were substituted, leaving me stopped, rereading the sentence and then guessing at the intented word and meaning. An instance with a double auxillary verb use, "should could", I think was meant to read, "she could". And then, in the climatic moments of the novel, in an important sentence, what should be a conditional “if it…” appears as a simply declarative, “it is..” but renders the rest of the sentence nonsensical. It forces the reader to stumble at a crucial moment in the text.
These complaints aside, Echo Lake was suspenseful, well written, well constructed, and thoughtful.
I don't want to recount or divulge the plotline, but there is a section where Emily is discovering what is known about an incident that involved her then-teenaged mother. Emily has learned of this event only after her mother has died and she has come to live in her mother's hometown. Throughout her life, her mother had only cursory words for Emily about her early life.
As readers, we learn what Emily learns about the event through her meetings with friends and acquaintances of her mom. These expository chapters are alternated with chapters describing the actual event as the mother experienced it. It was an engaging technique, knowing what the characters could only guess at, even suddenly feeling an urge to fill in the blanks for Emily.
If it truly is, Echo Lake is a great American novel because there is a horror that all experience, The source of that horror cannot be faced and mitigated until it is confronted. To address it directly risks too much, requires too much effort, too much time, too many resources. In the day to day routines, the daily grind, it becomes easier to adjust to the horror, protect yourself as best you can from its presence. Echo Lake could be Global Warming, Gun Control, The Military Industrial Complex, or the neighbor at your apartment complex that always parks straddling two spaces.
I don't know who else saw Peter Jackson's "King Kong", but the production lost all credibility with me early on. There's a scene when we first see Kong, when Naomi Watts is tied with heavy vines in the jungle outside the the village as an offering to him. Kong comes. Naomi struggles at the sight of this beast, wrenching her arms this way and that in an effort to break free. She can't and Kong enfolds her in his giant paw. Now this is where I have trouble: Kong holds her and with a quick twist of his wrist, the vines snap from the poles that had held her. No one else seemed to care that such an action in real life would snap her arms, not the vines. I may be the only person insisting on believability, even in films about impossibly enormous apes.
So, in Echo Lake, when Emily moves into the house her aunt left her and contemplates the freshly painted walls with lighter spots where the pictures were removed, I think there's too much writing going on here. Or not enough. I paint apartments. Fresh paint would cover up those unbleached rectangles, unless there is some other reason for it, which, in that case, needs to be elucidated. Then, at the end, after torrential rain and the swollen lake of the denouement, Emily stirs from a week of fever and recovery and steps outside: “The grass crunched beneath her shoes, dried and fragile from the long, hot summer.” That is not how I imagine grass after the rains and flooding describes in the pages preceding. Shit like that is insulting.
When I first picked up my copy of Echo Lake, I thought I held the perfect paperback book. I wondered if there were some formula (length times width divided by number of pages or something) that determined optimum book size. Surely, the size of the reader's hands would factor into it. The dimensions are slightly shorter and slightly wider that an average trade paperback (roughly a half inch, both ways). And I know, books come in all sorts of "typical" dimensions. Echo Lake was perfect, in this respect.
In addition to the glaring logical errors that an adroit editor might have flagged, there were several typographical mistakes that inhibited the flow of the prose. This wasn't simple misspellings where a reader might notice the mistake but still not lose the meaning of the sentence. There were a couple of instances where whole words were substituted, leaving me stopped, rereading the sentence and then guessing at the intented word and meaning. An instance with a double auxillary verb use, "should could", I think was meant to read, "she could". And then, in the climatic moments of the novel, in an important sentence, what should be a conditional “if it…” appears as a simply declarative, “it is..” but renders the rest of the sentence nonsensical. It forces the reader to stumble at a crucial moment in the text.
These complaints aside, Echo Lake was suspenseful, well written, well constructed, and thoughtful.
July 21, 2014
http://www.mybookishways.com/2014/07/...
Emily Collins has been spending the last 5 years or so working to support herself and her musician husband, while he plays gigs and crashes at friends’ houses. When Emily discovers that he’s been cheating on her (probably for a while), instead of breaking down, she throws him out, and discovers newfound freedom. Perhaps it’s fate, then, when she gets a letter notifying her that her Aunt Frannie has died, and left her Heartshorne, Oklahoma house to Emily. It’s almost too easy for Emily to shed the remnants of her old life, and head to Heartshorne, the place that her mother had left so long ago, vowing never to go back.
When Emily finally arrives in Heartshorne, she finds that Frannie’s house is a little dilapidated and worn, but that’s ok, because it’s hers. Soon she is greeted by the local Reverend, Levi Richardson, and soon learns that Frannie was actually killed in the home. In spite of that, Emily feels a connection to Heartshorne, and after finding out a terrible secret about her mother’s childhood that she never shared, Emily decides to find out the truth. She starts digging, with the help of a new friend, Jonathan, whose talent with tarot serves to strengthen Emily’s resolve, and whose companionship Emily comes to cherish. When more people disappear and start turning up dead, Emily feels compelled to make things right.
The title refers to a man-made lake in Heartshorne that serves as a literal and metaphorical repository of secrets. It’s dark, and beautiful, and sometimes gives off a menacing fog, but it seems to draw evil like a moth to a flame. We’re given the strong sense that Echo Lake is the key to just about everything, but Trent reveals its influence in snippets, some of them horrifying, some of them simply creepy, and it’s her fantastic sense of time (both past and present) and place, with Echo Lake at the center, that really propels this chilling book forward. If you’re looking for a heavy-handed horror tale, drenched in the supernatural, you won’t find that here. What you’ll find is a subtly menacing tale of secrets, murder, and home-grown vengeance, with a sometimes surrealistic veneer. It’s also a coming of age novel; alongside Emily’s journey (yes, she’s an adult, but when she leaves her old life behind, she’s only really beginning her true adulthood), we get the story of her mother Connie’s loss of innocence as a young, brash, headstrong girl of only 13. As Emily digs into her mother’s past, it starts to become clearer to her as to what made her mother what she was as an adult (she has since died of cancer), and as a mother, and it’s an important part of Emily’s journey. I really enjoyed this story of self discovery wrapped in a slightly supernatural murder tale. Letitia Trent has a poet’s grasp of language (as she should, since she’s a published poet), and this works so well in this atmospheric, creepy gem. This is a good book, and I’m really looking forward to what comes next from this talented author.
Emily Collins has been spending the last 5 years or so working to support herself and her musician husband, while he plays gigs and crashes at friends’ houses. When Emily discovers that he’s been cheating on her (probably for a while), instead of breaking down, she throws him out, and discovers newfound freedom. Perhaps it’s fate, then, when she gets a letter notifying her that her Aunt Frannie has died, and left her Heartshorne, Oklahoma house to Emily. It’s almost too easy for Emily to shed the remnants of her old life, and head to Heartshorne, the place that her mother had left so long ago, vowing never to go back.
When Emily finally arrives in Heartshorne, she finds that Frannie’s house is a little dilapidated and worn, but that’s ok, because it’s hers. Soon she is greeted by the local Reverend, Levi Richardson, and soon learns that Frannie was actually killed in the home. In spite of that, Emily feels a connection to Heartshorne, and after finding out a terrible secret about her mother’s childhood that she never shared, Emily decides to find out the truth. She starts digging, with the help of a new friend, Jonathan, whose talent with tarot serves to strengthen Emily’s resolve, and whose companionship Emily comes to cherish. When more people disappear and start turning up dead, Emily feels compelled to make things right.
The title refers to a man-made lake in Heartshorne that serves as a literal and metaphorical repository of secrets. It’s dark, and beautiful, and sometimes gives off a menacing fog, but it seems to draw evil like a moth to a flame. We’re given the strong sense that Echo Lake is the key to just about everything, but Trent reveals its influence in snippets, some of them horrifying, some of them simply creepy, and it’s her fantastic sense of time (both past and present) and place, with Echo Lake at the center, that really propels this chilling book forward. If you’re looking for a heavy-handed horror tale, drenched in the supernatural, you won’t find that here. What you’ll find is a subtly menacing tale of secrets, murder, and home-grown vengeance, with a sometimes surrealistic veneer. It’s also a coming of age novel; alongside Emily’s journey (yes, she’s an adult, but when she leaves her old life behind, she’s only really beginning her true adulthood), we get the story of her mother Connie’s loss of innocence as a young, brash, headstrong girl of only 13. As Emily digs into her mother’s past, it starts to become clearer to her as to what made her mother what she was as an adult (she has since died of cancer), and as a mother, and it’s an important part of Emily’s journey. I really enjoyed this story of self discovery wrapped in a slightly supernatural murder tale. Letitia Trent has a poet’s grasp of language (as she should, since she’s a published poet), and this works so well in this atmospheric, creepy gem. This is a good book, and I’m really looking forward to what comes next from this talented author.
June 22, 2016
A Weird Place novel about the titular lake, an engineered body of water which drowned an earlier iteration of Heartshorne, Oklahoma and has continued to have a bad reputation ever since. I was expecting a Charles L. Grant-esque work of quiet horror, but this was more of a Southern-gothic-by-way-of-the-Midwest focusing on family trauma and small-town secrets, with splashes of regular old horror intruding to allow Trent to meditate on the differences between random and “redemptive” violence.
Our protagonist Emily Collins, living a soulless and repetitious life in Ohio, finds herself newly single at 30. We’re told at first that this relationship had lasted five years and began when she was in college, which never really added up with the other stories we get about her life, but later we’re told the relationship lasted ten years. This isn’t a slippery, unreliable narrative, though, but just the most glaring of the sloppy mistakes that surface throughout this work, which also includes an astonishing number of typos. As a material artifact, this book is quite visually striking, but it seems the publisher might have spent their proofreading budget on the art department. This is too bad, because Trent (who I believe has mostly published poetry prior to this) has a beautiful way with language, even if the choice to omit quotation marks seems like a somewhat self-conscious way to assert this book’s literary (as opposed to genre) bona fides.
Emily, at any rate, is rather emotionally stunted/needy after a chaotic childhood spent unmoored and constantly moving, due to some unspecified trauma her single mother suffered during her own chaotic childhood in Heartshorne. When her great aunt dies and leaves her a house in Heartshorne, she decides this is her chance to figure out what happened to drive her family out of the town, and to make a more meaningful home/community for herself. Emily is the central POV through the book, but in the first section she is interspersed with chapters centered on various locals coming under the influence of the lake, in the second with flashbacks to her mother’s childhood, and in the third with Levi Richardson, the closeted local pastor who tries to bring Emily into his flock. Of those counterpoints, the first two were the weakest parts of the book - around halfway through I was sick of reading about random characters stabbing, slashing, or crushing other random characters, and the mother’s storyline went exactly where I didn’t want it to. Levi’s, on the other hand, worked because he was an actually developed character, and helped to tie in the wonderful climax of the novel.
This novel is an interesting counterpoint to Kiernan’s _The Red Tree_ (a newly-single woman relocates to the countryside and muses on loneliness and isolation while beset by long-running local weirdnesses) , and while I liked the voice of this one more, I think the Kiernan might stick with me longer - I can’t say why, exactly (maybe the metafictive/unreliable aspects of _The Red Tree_?), because I did enjoy this book, but that's my gut feeling.
Our protagonist Emily Collins, living a soulless and repetitious life in Ohio, finds herself newly single at 30. We’re told at first that this relationship had lasted five years and began when she was in college, which never really added up with the other stories we get about her life, but later we’re told the relationship lasted ten years. This isn’t a slippery, unreliable narrative, though, but just the most glaring of the sloppy mistakes that surface throughout this work, which also includes an astonishing number of typos. As a material artifact, this book is quite visually striking, but it seems the publisher might have spent their proofreading budget on the art department. This is too bad, because Trent (who I believe has mostly published poetry prior to this) has a beautiful way with language, even if the choice to omit quotation marks seems like a somewhat self-conscious way to assert this book’s literary (as opposed to genre) bona fides.
Emily, at any rate, is rather emotionally stunted/needy after a chaotic childhood spent unmoored and constantly moving, due to some unspecified trauma her single mother suffered during her own chaotic childhood in Heartshorne. When her great aunt dies and leaves her a house in Heartshorne, she decides this is her chance to figure out what happened to drive her family out of the town, and to make a more meaningful home/community for herself. Emily is the central POV through the book, but in the first section she is interspersed with chapters centered on various locals coming under the influence of the lake, in the second with flashbacks to her mother’s childhood, and in the third with Levi Richardson, the closeted local pastor who tries to bring Emily into his flock. Of those counterpoints, the first two were the weakest parts of the book - around halfway through I was sick of reading about random characters stabbing, slashing, or crushing other random characters, and the mother’s storyline went exactly where I didn’t want it to. Levi’s, on the other hand, worked because he was an actually developed character, and helped to tie in the wonderful climax of the novel.
This novel is an interesting counterpoint to Kiernan’s _The Red Tree_ (a newly-single woman relocates to the countryside and muses on loneliness and isolation while beset by long-running local weirdnesses) , and while I liked the voice of this one more, I think the Kiernan might stick with me longer - I can’t say why, exactly (maybe the metafictive/unreliable aspects of _The Red Tree_?), because I did enjoy this book, but that's my gut feeling.
January 20, 2015
This one starts slow, continues to be slow, and ends mostly without there being any resolution. Can't see it being worth a series, so not sure the ending is so ambiguous. Although there are readers who like books to end with a "what the heck is happening" or questions yet to be answered, I am not one of them. Not necessarily demanding a happy ending, but an ending would be nice.
The story is about a young woman who inherits from an aunt she has never heard existed a house in a small Oklahoma town, Her mother is dead. She was never forthcoming about her youth or any of her relatives. The town is supposed to be spooky, but all I see is a bunch of isolationist vigilantees. There is an attempt to touch on the town's dedication to religion, but it is watered down so even that plot direction fails. Sort of mentions that all the bad things happening (and there are quite a few unexplained happenings) are due to Satan and that if everyone just refuses evil, all will be well. The whole town is in denial. The police are hardly mentioned at all, and then in a tone that states pretty clearly that all are worthless and asleep at the switch. And along comes the young woman, who is an outsider.
As much as she tries to find out something about her mother, even the "revelations" are fragmented. There is little mention of her mother's family, and only sporadic mention of the aunt who left the young woman her house.
Basically choppy. Bad character development, and too much angst and self-loathing from the young woman who leads the cast.
The story is about a young woman who inherits from an aunt she has never heard existed a house in a small Oklahoma town, Her mother is dead. She was never forthcoming about her youth or any of her relatives. The town is supposed to be spooky, but all I see is a bunch of isolationist vigilantees. There is an attempt to touch on the town's dedication to religion, but it is watered down so even that plot direction fails. Sort of mentions that all the bad things happening (and there are quite a few unexplained happenings) are due to Satan and that if everyone just refuses evil, all will be well. The whole town is in denial. The police are hardly mentioned at all, and then in a tone that states pretty clearly that all are worthless and asleep at the switch. And along comes the young woman, who is an outsider.
As much as she tries to find out something about her mother, even the "revelations" are fragmented. There is little mention of her mother's family, and only sporadic mention of the aunt who left the young woman her house.
Basically choppy. Bad character development, and too much angst and self-loathing from the young woman who leads the cast.
May 11, 2014
This author obviously has a lot of talent and it's easy to see her poetry background come through in the often beautiful and haunting passages throughout this book. Because the writing is so strong, the narrative, especially the ending, fell apart for me. A lot of that had to do with the lead character, who was disappointing. Although she did solve the mystery, she did not grow past who she came into the novel being, and for me, that is a failure. I will be on the lookout for this author though, can't wait to see what she does next.
July 27, 2016
I received this book as a first reads copy. Emily goes to Echo Lake to take over her aunts old home. She looks to solve the mystery of her aunts death as well as the other odd happenings in the small rural community. I enjoyed reading as she found out details along the way and learned about the supernatural nature of the lake.
April 3, 2016
It was definitely suspenseful and interesting. I couldn't put it down, but I expected more of a drastic thrill, it wasn't very complex. The ending seemed a bit complacent, though it's more of a journey about a woman finding herself than true horror story. However, it is well written and I'd certainly read something by Letitia Trent again.
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May 6, 2017I can't resist any narrative that has a lake over a flooded town. This gothic story feels well balanced between the twin narratives of mother and daughter, separated as they are by years and all the secrets in those years.
November 8, 2014
I had a chance to read "Echo Lake" as a First Reader, and I will definitely be looking for more of Letitia Trent's work. I learned from her biography that her foundation as a writer was in poetry, and that was a definite asset to her in writing "Echo Lake". I found myself immediately caught up in Ms. Trent's writing style; I loved her vivid descriptions of her characters, which really made them come alive for me. The main character, Emily Collins, has been working for the past five years to support herself and her musician husband, while he plays gigs and parties. One morning, after her husband has crashed at a friend's house, Emily decides to surprise him, and is instead surprised herself when she finds him with another woman. Instead of breaking down, our heroine kicks her cheating husband to the curb, and discovers newfound freedom. Ready for a fresh start, Emily receives a letter notifying her that her Aunt Frannie has died, and left her Heartshorne, Oklahoma house to her.Emily's mother grew up in Heartshorne, but vowed to never go back there; her mother has since died from cancer, and never told Emily why she left Heartshorne.
When Emily finally arrives in Heartshorne, she finds that Frannie’s house is in definitely need of TLC, but that’s ok, because it’s hers. The local Reverend, Levi Richardson, pays her a visit to welcome her and to invite her to a church event. In conversation with Levi, Emily learns that Frannie was actually killed in the home. In spite of that, Emily feels a connection to Heartshorne, and after finding out a terrible secret about her mother’s childhood that she never shared, Emily decides to find out the truth. She starts digging, with the help of a new friend, Jonathan, whose talent with tarot serves to strengthen Emily’s resolve, and whose companionship Emily comes to cherish. When more people disappear and start turning up dead, Emily feels compelled to make things right.
The title refers to a man-made lake in Heartshorne, which is the town's literal and metaphorical repository of secrets. It’s dark and beautiful, and sometimes gives off a menacing green fog, but it seems to draw evil like a moth to a flame. There is a strong sense throughout the story that Echo Lake is the key to just about everything, but its influence is revealed in snippets, some of them horrifying, some of them simply creepy.
"Echo Lake" is a cautionary tale of secrets, murder, and home-grown vengeance. as well as a coming of age novel. In addition to the unraveling of the mystery behind all the murders in Heartshorne, the reader also get the opportunity to journey with Emily into the story of her mother, Connie’s, loss of innocence as a young, brash, headstrong girl of only 13. As Emily digs into her mother’s past, it starts to become clearer to her as to what made her mother what she was as an adult, and as a mother, and it’s an important part of Emily’s journey. In a particularly poignant scene at Echo Lake, Emily flashes back to the many precious times that she shared with her mother, which had been forgotten in her frustration and anger with her mother, and discovers that she really did love this complicated woman. I really enjoyed this story of self discovery wrapped in a slightly supernatural murder tale, and look forward to reading more from this talented author.
When Emily finally arrives in Heartshorne, she finds that Frannie’s house is in definitely need of TLC, but that’s ok, because it’s hers. The local Reverend, Levi Richardson, pays her a visit to welcome her and to invite her to a church event. In conversation with Levi, Emily learns that Frannie was actually killed in the home. In spite of that, Emily feels a connection to Heartshorne, and after finding out a terrible secret about her mother’s childhood that she never shared, Emily decides to find out the truth. She starts digging, with the help of a new friend, Jonathan, whose talent with tarot serves to strengthen Emily’s resolve, and whose companionship Emily comes to cherish. When more people disappear and start turning up dead, Emily feels compelled to make things right.
The title refers to a man-made lake in Heartshorne, which is the town's literal and metaphorical repository of secrets. It’s dark and beautiful, and sometimes gives off a menacing green fog, but it seems to draw evil like a moth to a flame. There is a strong sense throughout the story that Echo Lake is the key to just about everything, but its influence is revealed in snippets, some of them horrifying, some of them simply creepy.
"Echo Lake" is a cautionary tale of secrets, murder, and home-grown vengeance. as well as a coming of age novel. In addition to the unraveling of the mystery behind all the murders in Heartshorne, the reader also get the opportunity to journey with Emily into the story of her mother, Connie’s, loss of innocence as a young, brash, headstrong girl of only 13. As Emily digs into her mother’s past, it starts to become clearer to her as to what made her mother what she was as an adult, and as a mother, and it’s an important part of Emily’s journey. In a particularly poignant scene at Echo Lake, Emily flashes back to the many precious times that she shared with her mother, which had been forgotten in her frustration and anger with her mother, and discovers that she really did love this complicated woman. I really enjoyed this story of self discovery wrapped in a slightly supernatural murder tale, and look forward to reading more from this talented author.
August 14, 2014
(Original review appears in Pantheon Magazine at http://pantheonmag.com/book-review-ec...)
Letitia Trent’s, Echo Lake, the flagship novel release from Dark House Press (who gave us the neo-noir anthology, The New Black, in May), is an atmospheric, moody traipse through the hard soil of memory and dark pasts that would just as soon remain buried, unmolested by prying eyes and modernity’s judgment. Part rural noir, part haunted mystery, it mainlines smoothly into the bloodstream and works its magic one unrushed line at a time until, like most (good) highs, you find yourself oscillating between past and present without demarcations.
Emily Collins, 30, who works “a proper day job that required pumps and stockings, her hair arranged in some semblance of order, and a professional wardrobe of blacks and neutrals” in Columbus, Ohio, finds a letter one day while sorting her musician husband’s mail shortly after their marriage has fallen apart. Sent from Oklahoma by a lawyer representing her family, it states that her great aunt, Fran Collins, has recently died, and left her house to her niece’s only living relative—Emily.
Yielding to the idea that a fresh start from her failed marriage is the right move—and spurred to no small extent by recent dreams in which her dead mother (Connie) suggests likewise—she packs her car and drives to Heartshorne, her home town that borders the man-made Echo Lake which for decades has submerged an older town, its skeletal fingers lurking just beneath the surface.
Only after arriving to the dilapidated, isolated house does she learn from the local Baptist pastor that her great aunt had in fact been murdered there. In truth, Emily has unwittingly walked into a town recently rife with unsolved murders and disappearances. Her own mother’s past (Connie), or more to the point, Emily’s ignorance of it due to Connie’s secrecy, drives the normally apprehensive Emily to investigate the town’s past for clues about her heritage, the process of which helps her to rediscover her own autonomy.
As a work of mystery, Echo Lake is as interested in the whydunits as it is the whodunits. The lake itself exhales both a literal and metaphorical fog, one that implies cause as well as conceals truth. Few are immune to its draw; fewer still to its murderous influence. Past and present crimes braid together in a way that stops time and denies exceptionality, and this is one of Echo Lake’s great accomplishments: it speaks of the violence and umbrage between and within families as a cyclical constant, doomed to repeat itself if never addressed. It takes its time doing this, but with Trent’s clean but elegiac prose (she’s an established poet), the scenery on the journey is always intriguing, rich, alive. Think the secret lovechild of Flannery O’Connor and James Dickey.
Ultimately Echo Lake is about finding and embracing love, however stubborn, however not ideal. Emily’s entire arc is acceptance, both of her herself and the overlooked love from her mother. Some of this she discovers through the people of Heartshorne; much of it though springs forth from the cauldron of the lake itself. A roiling, steadfast repository for all the darkness of the soul.
Letitia Trent’s, Echo Lake, the flagship novel release from Dark House Press (who gave us the neo-noir anthology, The New Black, in May), is an atmospheric, moody traipse through the hard soil of memory and dark pasts that would just as soon remain buried, unmolested by prying eyes and modernity’s judgment. Part rural noir, part haunted mystery, it mainlines smoothly into the bloodstream and works its magic one unrushed line at a time until, like most (good) highs, you find yourself oscillating between past and present without demarcations.
Emily Collins, 30, who works “a proper day job that required pumps and stockings, her hair arranged in some semblance of order, and a professional wardrobe of blacks and neutrals” in Columbus, Ohio, finds a letter one day while sorting her musician husband’s mail shortly after their marriage has fallen apart. Sent from Oklahoma by a lawyer representing her family, it states that her great aunt, Fran Collins, has recently died, and left her house to her niece’s only living relative—Emily.
Yielding to the idea that a fresh start from her failed marriage is the right move—and spurred to no small extent by recent dreams in which her dead mother (Connie) suggests likewise—she packs her car and drives to Heartshorne, her home town that borders the man-made Echo Lake which for decades has submerged an older town, its skeletal fingers lurking just beneath the surface.
Only after arriving to the dilapidated, isolated house does she learn from the local Baptist pastor that her great aunt had in fact been murdered there. In truth, Emily has unwittingly walked into a town recently rife with unsolved murders and disappearances. Her own mother’s past (Connie), or more to the point, Emily’s ignorance of it due to Connie’s secrecy, drives the normally apprehensive Emily to investigate the town’s past for clues about her heritage, the process of which helps her to rediscover her own autonomy.
As a work of mystery, Echo Lake is as interested in the whydunits as it is the whodunits. The lake itself exhales both a literal and metaphorical fog, one that implies cause as well as conceals truth. Few are immune to its draw; fewer still to its murderous influence. Past and present crimes braid together in a way that stops time and denies exceptionality, and this is one of Echo Lake’s great accomplishments: it speaks of the violence and umbrage between and within families as a cyclical constant, doomed to repeat itself if never addressed. It takes its time doing this, but with Trent’s clean but elegiac prose (she’s an established poet), the scenery on the journey is always intriguing, rich, alive. Think the secret lovechild of Flannery O’Connor and James Dickey.
Ultimately Echo Lake is about finding and embracing love, however stubborn, however not ideal. Emily’s entire arc is acceptance, both of her herself and the overlooked love from her mother. Some of this she discovers through the people of Heartshorne; much of it though springs forth from the cauldron of the lake itself. A roiling, steadfast repository for all the darkness of the soul.
September 2, 2014
Liked it, didn't LOVE it. I'd say it's more of a 3 1/2 star book, but not quite 4 as far as my tastes are concerned.
Pros: the prose is good and the overall mood of the novel is very consistent. There's this dread that never really leaves you as you read about this small town of Heartshorne with it's random acts of violence and Echo Lake itself, which seems to be where all of the horror is coming from. As a fan of more traditional literature, this is exactly the kind of novel I would expect Dark House to publish based on their collection The New Black, which is to say, the genre of horror written in more lyrical way or with modern narrative styles, "literary", however you want to describe it. Occasionally there are vignettes that relate to the lake itself, but are not quite related to the plot of Emily's new life in Heartshorne, which at first were kind of confusing, but overtime become a means of understanding the town as a whole. Kind of reminded me of Night Wood in a way, in that this is more a portrait of an entire town denying its own depravity, and for that I very much enjoyed it.
Cons: the whole no quotation thing kind of irked me, but I think that can be more ascribed to my reading habits. I link my kindle up to my phone, so alot of times I continue reading the book on my phone in random moments throughout the day. Without quotation marks, this can be kind of confusing. Also, as a few people noted, there were a few grammar mistakes. Nothing damning, but it def took me out of the narrative.
Secondly, there were a few scenes where the plot was pushed forward through the use of Tarot Cards and dream sequences. Kind of gave it a Twin Peaks vibe, which while I think can be pulled off, especially in the medium of film, I don't know if it worked as well here. It seemed kind of forced at times, sort of a means of pushing the plot forward for lack of a better way. Then again, the whole town had a eerie dreamlike quality to it, so in another way, it fits the tone.
Thirdly (and this is a major spoiler, so stop reading if you haven't read the book yet), I really hated Emily's reaction to finding out Levi's responsibility in the murder of her aunt, to the point where I just couldn't buy it. I was literally angry about it. I just kept thinking- why is she just okay with what happened? She seemed to have some kind of awareness about the lake's powers, but there never seemed to be any kind of explanation given as to how she gained this awareness. Maybe I missed something, but how did she know gradually learn of the lake's powers?
Overall, a good read, but lost a few points based on the reasons listed. The town of Heartshorne is a creepy one and not much good happens there. I'd recommend it to anyone that likes their horror more subtle, rural, and filled with dread. And if you think old man made lakes are creepy, that's a plus too.
Pros: the prose is good and the overall mood of the novel is very consistent. There's this dread that never really leaves you as you read about this small town of Heartshorne with it's random acts of violence and Echo Lake itself, which seems to be where all of the horror is coming from. As a fan of more traditional literature, this is exactly the kind of novel I would expect Dark House to publish based on their collection The New Black, which is to say, the genre of horror written in more lyrical way or with modern narrative styles, "literary", however you want to describe it. Occasionally there are vignettes that relate to the lake itself, but are not quite related to the plot of Emily's new life in Heartshorne, which at first were kind of confusing, but overtime become a means of understanding the town as a whole. Kind of reminded me of Night Wood in a way, in that this is more a portrait of an entire town denying its own depravity, and for that I very much enjoyed it.
Cons: the whole no quotation thing kind of irked me, but I think that can be more ascribed to my reading habits. I link my kindle up to my phone, so alot of times I continue reading the book on my phone in random moments throughout the day. Without quotation marks, this can be kind of confusing. Also, as a few people noted, there were a few grammar mistakes. Nothing damning, but it def took me out of the narrative.
Secondly, there were a few scenes where the plot was pushed forward through the use of Tarot Cards and dream sequences. Kind of gave it a Twin Peaks vibe, which while I think can be pulled off, especially in the medium of film, I don't know if it worked as well here. It seemed kind of forced at times, sort of a means of pushing the plot forward for lack of a better way. Then again, the whole town had a eerie dreamlike quality to it, so in another way, it fits the tone.
Thirdly (and this is a major spoiler, so stop reading if you haven't read the book yet), I really hated Emily's reaction to finding out Levi's responsibility in the murder of her aunt, to the point where I just couldn't buy it. I was literally angry about it. I just kept thinking- why is she just okay with what happened? She seemed to have some kind of awareness about the lake's powers, but there never seemed to be any kind of explanation given as to how she gained this awareness. Maybe I missed something, but how did she know gradually learn of the lake's powers?
Overall, a good read, but lost a few points based on the reasons listed. The town of Heartshorne is a creepy one and not much good happens there. I'd recommend it to anyone that likes their horror more subtle, rural, and filled with dread. And if you think old man made lakes are creepy, that's a plus too.
August 2, 2014
Full disclosure: Letitia is a friend of mine and I'm already a huge fan of her poetry and of the horror movie podcast she cohosts, so there was no way I WASN'T going to like Echo Lake. But I still feel comfortable saying this is a fantastically entertaining first novel, and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to anyone who's into horror, suspense, noir, or just good literature. The main character, Emily, inherits her murdered great-aunt's house in rural Oklahoma, and after she uproots her life and moves there, she ends up investigating her family's dark past and how it fits into the dark past (and present) of the town itself. I've always loved the "seemingly wholesome small town hides dark secrets" plot device, so it was especially fascinating and eerie for me to watch that plot unfold in an environment very much like the one I grew up in.
One of my favorite things about this novel is the structure and the way it allows the suspense to unfold at a satisfying pace. The book is divided into three roughly equal sections, and in the first, Emily discovers that something happened to her now-dead mother when she (the mother) was thirteen that resulted in their entire family, with the exception of Emily's great-aunt, moving away immediately afterward. The middle section alternates between Emily's conversation with an elderly woman who claims to know what happened to Emily's mother, and flashbacks to what actually happened during those three days in 1965. I really appreciated the way this structure allows the suspense to build and holds the reader's interest without ever feeling manipulative.
Fair warning: this book is pretty dark and creepy, and it doesn't shy away from showing the worst of small-town life. But nor does it wallow in seediness or corruption. Emily has her fair share of issues, as she'd be the first to admit. But she's completely believable and likable as a protagonist, quick to find the good in her new hometown even though she knows something terrible happened to her family here. I'd like to be able to claim I knew what a treat Echo Lake would be, but Letitia really outdid herself. Highly recommended.
One of my favorite things about this novel is the structure and the way it allows the suspense to unfold at a satisfying pace. The book is divided into three roughly equal sections, and in the first, Emily discovers that something happened to her now-dead mother when she (the mother) was thirteen that resulted in their entire family, with the exception of Emily's great-aunt, moving away immediately afterward. The middle section alternates between Emily's conversation with an elderly woman who claims to know what happened to Emily's mother, and flashbacks to what actually happened during those three days in 1965. I really appreciated the way this structure allows the suspense to build and holds the reader's interest without ever feeling manipulative.
Fair warning: this book is pretty dark and creepy, and it doesn't shy away from showing the worst of small-town life. But nor does it wallow in seediness or corruption. Emily has her fair share of issues, as she'd be the first to admit. But she's completely believable and likable as a protagonist, quick to find the good in her new hometown even though she knows something terrible happened to her family here. I'd like to be able to claim I knew what a treat Echo Lake would be, but Letitia really outdid herself. Highly recommended.
March 19, 2015
Letitia Trent and I met a decade or so ago and bonded over weird, rural Oklahoma stuff, so when I found out she had written a book with this setting and it was in the genre of my heart (gothic) I snapped it up. I grew up between two haunted lakes (Oklahoma is full of them,) one covering a town and the other settled land, and they filled our rural farm with spooky, weird smelling fog. A pastor killed his wife and then drove his car into one of them a few years back. This novel was consequently very real to me, the strange small town of Heartshorne like many I have visited. I can't remember the last time I read something and so often thought, "Ahh, I know that feeling, that smell, that memory."
I love when poets write prose, there is a magical disregard for the rigid and formulaic structure in most novels that I find invigorating, inspiring, and exciting to read. It feels like growth in a medium where things don't really change that much.
I love when poets write prose, there is a magical disregard for the rigid and formulaic structure in most novels that I find invigorating, inspiring, and exciting to read. It feels like growth in a medium where things don't really change that much.
October 28, 2014
Echo Lake is an original, chilling and great read filled with darkness and mystery. Emily moves to the town her family was from to live in the home of her Aunt. But knowing nothing about the town or her family because her Mother kept it all a secret. She discovers her Aunt was murdered and more family secrets along the way. Letitia Trent does an excellent job writing the feel and flavor of an outsider trying to fit into a small country town.
The town and scenery in the woods are painted so well you can feel the darkness surrounding Echo Lake; the way the town is described you feel you've passed through one just like it at some point. The characters are just as you would imagine them to react to an outsider seeking answers. This story has many levels and twists, along with great characters. It's a page turner til the end.
The town and scenery in the woods are painted so well you can feel the darkness surrounding Echo Lake; the way the town is described you feel you've passed through one just like it at some point. The characters are just as you would imagine them to react to an outsider seeking answers. This story has many levels and twists, along with great characters. It's a page turner til the end.
May 26, 2015
I received an ARC of Eco Lake by Letitia Trent through Goodreads giveaways. This book was both spooky and intriguing. A family with a dark secret untold for 40 years, a town that wholeheartedly believes in 'an eye for an eye', a series of gruesome murders that may or may not be caused by the uber creepy Echo Lake and its mysterious green fog.
I could not put this book down! Throughout the whole thing I was desperately intrigued and needed to know the whole secret that the Collins family desperately tried to hide. All in all this was a very enjoyable book. I have to say that the conclusion, I felt, was just a tad bit anticlimactic when compared with the rest of the book. However that in no way took away from the overall feeling of this novel. Definitely recommend it to all my friends!
I could not put this book down! Throughout the whole thing I was desperately intrigued and needed to know the whole secret that the Collins family desperately tried to hide. All in all this was a very enjoyable book. I have to say that the conclusion, I felt, was just a tad bit anticlimactic when compared with the rest of the book. However that in no way took away from the overall feeling of this novel. Definitely recommend it to all my friends!
October 7, 2014
Letitia Trent's thriller is fast-paced and deftly constructed. Emily Collins inherits her great aunt's house and moves to her mother's hometown which she has never visited before, uncovering the town's dark secrets. What I admired most was the way that Trent switches back and forth between present time, flashback, and dream-state. Just an astonishingly well-written book.
The only drawback is that the print edition of the book has many errors. I hope that it goes to a second printing with corrections.
The only drawback is that the print edition of the book has many errors. I hope that it goes to a second printing with corrections.
July 28, 2014
A compelling page turner that felt a bit detached from its characters a lot of the time. Trent does a great job of creating atmosphere but a lot of this book I felt I've come across in other stories over the years. I received a free copy, and while it doesn't appear to be a proof or ARC, there are a ton of errors in it, which became very distracting.
July 30, 2014
I received an ARC copy of this book by Sarah in exchange for an honest review, thank you!
This book is original with mystery, suspense and creepiness. I've never read anything like it before. To me it has a Agatha Christie vibe to it. I loved it!
This book is original with mystery, suspense and creepiness. I've never read anything like it before. To me it has a Agatha Christie vibe to it. I loved it!
August 7, 2014
This was a chilling read. I thriller that delves deeply into family, community, and fear. Well written and with a good pace. I liked the main character a lot. The ending was a bit abrupt for me, but the story of this lake and its hauntings will teach you something about yourself!
October 11, 2014
There is some delicious darkness in this one and so much under the surface pulling you down as you read. The prose is menacingly rich, and you constantly feel that huge shape you can't see lurking somewhere in the water beneath you. I didn't want to stop reading, even when it was over.
October 9, 2013
Whoa...
February 27, 2014
The summer-reading-by-a-lake book of 2014.
August 2, 2015
What a great, haunting story. I loved it. Maybe I will elaborate once I've had some time to process my thoughts.
February 21, 2015
haunting
November 15, 2019
*2.5 of 5 stars*
What an interesting little mess this book was.
First, the story itself: It started out so promising, the premise intriguing and mysterious: a woman moves back to her mother's hometown thirty years after she was born, the town itself in the middle of a series of unsolved murders, and it seems the girl's family's history with the town has something to do with the mystery itself. Throw in a recently murdered great aunt and a sinister lake and it had all the makings for a great Gothic masterpiece.
Well, I started reading, and reading, and reading, and then continued reading, and I started to think to myself: when is the story going to start picking up? The majority of the book deals with various vignettes of people killing other people, some of them characters in the larger story and others random people, and they seem to be generally unimportant to the plot overall. The rest of the book deals with the main character mentioned above, a woman named Emily, and her slow unraveling of her family's past in the town and what it possibly has to do with the current day's murders. The author does a good job intertwining it all, but so much of it seemed unnecessary and could've been cut.
When the last sixty pages arrive, and the cause of the mystery is apparently revealed and then neatly solved, it comes out as flat and deflating. I feel like the book kept building and building up to a big reveal that never came. The ending wasn't very satisfying either, especially as everything somehow gets magically tied up neatly.
Now, to the other issue with the book: this book has MAJOR editing issues. And when I say major, I mean so major that there are at least one or two typos a page. How did this book get published like this? Missing commas and periods, misspelled words, missing words, and a change in perspective for a few pages (third to first and then back to third) are some of the typo/lack-of-editing highlights. There were literally so many typos that they often took me out of the story, chopping up the flow of it and making it hard to follow at times.
On top of this, there are plot continuity issues as well (i.e. at one point, the house the main character resides in is described as being one story, but a few pages later the author writes about the main character looking out the second story window and then walking downstairs), and it just really harmed the overall flow of the book. It's hard to get into a story when even the small details don't line up. Coming from an indie publisher, I feel like Trent got hosed here, and they might've promised her an editor that never actually existed and just published her manuscript verbatim as she sent it to them instead of actually editing it. This was extremely frustrating to read through page after page.
What an interesting little mess this book was.
First, the story itself: It started out so promising, the premise intriguing and mysterious: a woman moves back to her mother's hometown thirty years after she was born, the town itself in the middle of a series of unsolved murders, and it seems the girl's family's history with the town has something to do with the mystery itself. Throw in a recently murdered great aunt and a sinister lake and it had all the makings for a great Gothic masterpiece.
Well, I started reading, and reading, and reading, and then continued reading, and I started to think to myself: when is the story going to start picking up? The majority of the book deals with various vignettes of people killing other people, some of them characters in the larger story and others random people, and they seem to be generally unimportant to the plot overall. The rest of the book deals with the main character mentioned above, a woman named Emily, and her slow unraveling of her family's past in the town and what it possibly has to do with the current day's murders. The author does a good job intertwining it all, but so much of it seemed unnecessary and could've been cut.
When the last sixty pages arrive, and the cause of the mystery is apparently revealed and then neatly solved, it comes out as flat and deflating. I feel like the book kept building and building up to a big reveal that never came. The ending wasn't very satisfying either, especially as everything somehow gets magically tied up neatly.
Now, to the other issue with the book: this book has MAJOR editing issues. And when I say major, I mean so major that there are at least one or two typos a page. How did this book get published like this? Missing commas and periods, misspelled words, missing words, and a change in perspective for a few pages (third to first and then back to third) are some of the typo/lack-of-editing highlights. There were literally so many typos that they often took me out of the story, chopping up the flow of it and making it hard to follow at times.
On top of this, there are plot continuity issues as well (i.e. at one point, the house the main character resides in is described as being one story, but a few pages later the author writes about the main character looking out the second story window and then walking downstairs), and it just really harmed the overall flow of the book. It's hard to get into a story when even the small details don't line up. Coming from an indie publisher, I feel like Trent got hosed here, and they might've promised her an editor that never actually existed and just published her manuscript verbatim as she sent it to them instead of actually editing it. This was extremely frustrating to read through page after page.
April 2, 2022
I give this a 1.5 star. There are a few reasons why that I'd like to discuss.
Firstly, maybe there's a better way to do this, but **if you are someone who values and wants trigger warnings**, please unhide this TW that is also revealing about the plot (and that I will discuss in my review):
POSITIVES:
The story is interesting -- the source of the plot is interesting, and I like the way we are taken through interwoven vignettes. Especially as the plot builds, we bounce around a lot in the perspective, and it really serves well to the building tension.
NEGATIVES:
Not really taking much off for me:
As some others have pointed out, this book ought to have gone through a few more rounds of editing and proofreading. The errors are very common and it is a little bit distracting, but I didn't mind it too much.
Taking off 1.5 stars
I will say, I am disappointed with how the narrative resolved. I'll discuss why here in a spoiler tag.
For those that don't want the spoiler, the high level overview is that there is a major aspect of the plot that is completely absent from the resolution in a way that is both completely disappointing and also very confusing. It seems unfinished.
Taking off 2 stars:
My second issue with this book resulting in its low rating is actually something I find really upsetting. It has to do with the topic I put in a trigger warning above, and I'll describe it in a spoiler tag.
High level summary of this issue: there is a really horrible perspective taken by a character that is obviously not the way anyone in that character's situation SHOULD think, and the author did absolutely nothing to correct this perspective, and in fact centered the entire concluding scene around this horrible idea.
Not really taking off anything:
My third issue is barely an issue, and it is in part a compliment. Letitia Grant obviously has a background in poetry and writes beautiful prose. I love her style of prose, and the interesting, indirect remarks she makes about human nature through her poetic descriptions. That being said, I think it is very difficult to master the art of balancing poetry with narrative-driven content (i.e. content relevant to the story at hand), and I don't think this is mastered in this book. While many passages of poetically descriptive prose hinted towards messages central to the themes of the story, there were also many passages and detours to poetically describe settings or the like in a way that was obviously only for the sake of adding nice prose. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with this, but I found myself eager to skip over it, as it clearly wasn't actually part of the story.
Overall, I thought it was an interesting idea, but there were some serious content issues for me that totally ruined it, and many superficial flaws (actual errors, and deviations from the story) that were distracting.
In sum, I thought it was a great idea, underwhelming and somewhat frustrating execution.
Firstly, maybe there's a better way to do this, but **if you are someone who values and wants trigger warnings**, please unhide this TW that is also revealing about the plot (and that I will discuss in my review):
POSITIVES:
The story is interesting -- the source of the plot is interesting, and I like the way we are taken through interwoven vignettes. Especially as the plot builds, we bounce around a lot in the perspective, and it really serves well to the building tension.
NEGATIVES:
Not really taking much off for me:
As some others have pointed out, this book ought to have gone through a few more rounds of editing and proofreading. The errors are very common and it is a little bit distracting, but I didn't mind it too much.
Taking off 1.5 stars
I will say, I am disappointed with how the narrative resolved. I'll discuss why here in a spoiler tag.
For those that don't want the spoiler, the high level overview is that there is a major aspect of the plot that is completely absent from the resolution in a way that is both completely disappointing and also very confusing. It seems unfinished.
Taking off 2 stars:
My second issue with this book resulting in its low rating is actually something I find really upsetting. It has to do with the topic I put in a trigger warning above, and I'll describe it in a spoiler tag.
High level summary of this issue: there is a really horrible perspective taken by a character that is obviously not the way anyone in that character's situation SHOULD think, and the author did absolutely nothing to correct this perspective, and in fact centered the entire concluding scene around this horrible idea.
Not really taking off anything:
My third issue is barely an issue, and it is in part a compliment. Letitia Grant obviously has a background in poetry and writes beautiful prose. I love her style of prose, and the interesting, indirect remarks she makes about human nature through her poetic descriptions. That being said, I think it is very difficult to master the art of balancing poetry with narrative-driven content (i.e. content relevant to the story at hand), and I don't think this is mastered in this book. While many passages of poetically descriptive prose hinted towards messages central to the themes of the story, there were also many passages and detours to poetically describe settings or the like in a way that was obviously only for the sake of adding nice prose. I don't think there's anything necessarily wrong with this, but I found myself eager to skip over it, as it clearly wasn't actually part of the story.
Overall, I thought it was an interesting idea, but there were some serious content issues for me that totally ruined it, and many superficial flaws (actual errors, and deviations from the story) that were distracting.
In sum, I thought it was a great idea, underwhelming and somewhat frustrating execution.
July 2, 2018
Very interesting plot, it just wasn't delivered well enough. My copy had a lot of spelling errors, which took me out of the story as soon as I noticed them. (It wasn't an ARC.) The dialogue is also written a funky way without quotation marks and I found that to work well in favor of the eerie tone of the story. However, I skimmed the last 50-pages or so because I felt unsatisfied with the plot and just wanted to be onto the next.
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