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Night Echoes
When artist Emma Beck returns to her small South Carolina hometown to discover the truth about her roots and long-dead parents, everything she thought she knew about her birth begins to fall apart --- especially after she moves into the old wreck of a Civil War farmhouse she plans to restore. But Emma is drawn to the house, which seems strangely familiar, as does Mike Ruhl, the young contractor she hires to help her fix it up. She begins to feel frightened, though, when she recognizes Mike as a recurring face in her paintings --- including one in a Confederate uniform. And when Emma starts to hear soft whisperings late at night, and Mike discovers lost letters and a hidden journal in the attic, they realize they are caught in a web of ghostly tragedy that once reached out to ensnare Emma's parents, and which now threatens to devour her and Mike as well ...
306 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 3, 2007
2 people are currently reading
111 people want to read
About the author
Holly Lisle
108 books449 followersHolly Lisle has been writing fiction professionally since 1991, when she sold FIRE IN THE MIST, the novel that won her the Compton Crook Award for best first novel. She has to date published more than thirty novels and several comprehensive writing courses. She has just published WARPAINT, the second stand-alone novel in her Cadence Drake series.
Holly had an ideal childhood for a writer…which is to say, it was filled with foreign countries and exotic terrains, alien cultures, new languages, the occasional earthquake, flood, or civil war, and one story about a bear, which follows:
“So. Back when I was ten years old, my father and I had finished hunting ducks for our dinner and were walking across the tundra in Alaska toward the spot on the river where we’d tied our boat. We had a couple miles to go by boat to get back to the Moravian Children’s Home, where we lived.
“My father was carrying the big bag of decoys and the shotgun; I was carrying the small bag of ducks.
“It was getting dark, we could hear the thud, thud, thud of the generator across the tundra, and suddenly he stopped, pointed down to a pie-pan sized indentation in the tundra that was rapidly filling with water, and said, in a calm and steady voice, “That’s a bear footprint. From the size of it, it’s a grizzly. The fact that the track is filling with water right now means the bear’s still around.”
“Which got my attention, but not as much as what he said next.
” ‘I don’t have the gun with me that will kill a bear,’ he told me. ‘I just have the one that will make him angry. So if we see the bear, I’m going to shoot him so he’ll attack me. I want you to run to the river, follow it to the boat, get the boat back home, and tell everyone what happened.’
“The rest of our walk was very quiet. He was, I’m sure, listening for the bear. I was doing my damnedest to make sure that I remembered where the boat was, how to get to it, how to start the pull-cord engine, and how to drive it back home, because I did not want to let him down.
“We were not eaten by a bear that night…but neither is that walk back from our hunt for supper a part of my life I’ll ever forget.
“I keep that story in mind as I write. If what I’m putting on paper isn’t at least as memorable as having a grizzly stalking my father and me across the tundra while I was carrying a bag of delicious-smelling ducks, it doesn’t make my cut.”
You can find Holly on her personal site:
Hollylisle.com
You can find Cadence Drake, Holly's currently in-progress series, on her site:
CadenceDrake.com
You can find Holly's books, courses, writing workshops, and so on here:
The HowToThinkSideways.com Shop, as well as on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and in a number of bookstores in the US and around the world.
Holly had an ideal childhood for a writer…which is to say, it was filled with foreign countries and exotic terrains, alien cultures, new languages, the occasional earthquake, flood, or civil war, and one story about a bear, which follows:
“So. Back when I was ten years old, my father and I had finished hunting ducks for our dinner and were walking across the tundra in Alaska toward the spot on the river where we’d tied our boat. We had a couple miles to go by boat to get back to the Moravian Children’s Home, where we lived.
“My father was carrying the big bag of decoys and the shotgun; I was carrying the small bag of ducks.
“It was getting dark, we could hear the thud, thud, thud of the generator across the tundra, and suddenly he stopped, pointed down to a pie-pan sized indentation in the tundra that was rapidly filling with water, and said, in a calm and steady voice, “That’s a bear footprint. From the size of it, it’s a grizzly. The fact that the track is filling with water right now means the bear’s still around.”
“Which got my attention, but not as much as what he said next.
” ‘I don’t have the gun with me that will kill a bear,’ he told me. ‘I just have the one that will make him angry. So if we see the bear, I’m going to shoot him so he’ll attack me. I want you to run to the river, follow it to the boat, get the boat back home, and tell everyone what happened.’
“The rest of our walk was very quiet. He was, I’m sure, listening for the bear. I was doing my damnedest to make sure that I remembered where the boat was, how to get to it, how to start the pull-cord engine, and how to drive it back home, because I did not want to let him down.
“We were not eaten by a bear that night…but neither is that walk back from our hunt for supper a part of my life I’ll ever forget.
“I keep that story in mind as I write. If what I’m putting on paper isn’t at least as memorable as having a grizzly stalking my father and me across the tundra while I was carrying a bag of delicious-smelling ducks, it doesn’t make my cut.”
You can find Holly on her personal site:
Hollylisle.com
You can find Cadence Drake, Holly's currently in-progress series, on her site:
CadenceDrake.com
You can find Holly's books, courses, writing workshops, and so on here:
The HowToThinkSideways.com Shop, as well as on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and in a number of bookstores in the US and around the world.
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Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews
October 11, 2016
Bland characters, flat prose, & cliched tropes clashing with a plotline that couldn't decide whether to be ghostly horror, romantic suspense, or noir small-town mystery. The whole 'hidden diary in the attic' and/or reincarnation of a past tragedy is overused, but it might have been entertaining if combined with a decent haunting...alas, the haunting itself wasn't very intense (i.e., not at all), & the abrupt shift into tracking some ped0 serial killer was just too much. The flatter-than-flat prose was no help; I didn't GAF about the boring contemporary characters, & the diary ghosts couldn't even tell their own story with some antiquated flair. Rather, everything they wrote was summarized by the MC as she read it on an airplane. Zzzzzz.
November 11, 2021
Artist Emma Beck is drawn to the small town of Benina, where she finds the old house she has been painting most of her life. Something clearly terrible happened there once, as the house definitely appears to be haunted, with footsteps of unidentified sources, a constantly dripping tap she can't find, and whispering voices on tapes. She feels an immediate connection to Mike Ruhl, the contractor she hires to help fix the place up. It's possible he also has connections to the house from long ago. Wound up with this is the mystery of what happened to Emma's birth mother, who died shortly after giving birth to her. When Emma starts asking questions, people start dying!
I'm not normally one for the paranormal in my suspense or romantic suspense novels, but it was handled very well here. I think because the book followed its own rules and didn't get too outlandish. And it didn't play coy: you know, where most of the events can be explained away at the end by various things except for that one ghostly thing that can't be explained? Ooh, spooky! (for example, The Shape Of Night by Tesa Gerritsen). I hate that, and that definitely didn't happen here. The events are definitely supernatural, the characters accept that something beyond their knowledge and comprehension is happening, and just go with it in order to try and get to the truth. The book did a good job with both the reincarnation angle and the haunting of the house, tying the two strands together quite seamlessly. There are some solid, spooky moments along the way. The romance isn't anything special, but at least the reincarnation angle gives us a good foundation for why Emma and Mike are so instantly attracted to one another.
There are some questionable character actions later in the book, but nothing that outraged me too greatly. This was an enjoyable romantic suspense book that handled its supernatural element much better than most other books.
I'm not normally one for the paranormal in my suspense or romantic suspense novels, but it was handled very well here. I think because the book followed its own rules and didn't get too outlandish. And it didn't play coy: you know, where most of the events can be explained away at the end by various things except for that one ghostly thing that can't be explained? Ooh, spooky! (for example, The Shape Of Night by Tesa Gerritsen). I hate that, and that definitely didn't happen here. The events are definitely supernatural, the characters accept that something beyond their knowledge and comprehension is happening, and just go with it in order to try and get to the truth. The book did a good job with both the reincarnation angle and the haunting of the house, tying the two strands together quite seamlessly. There are some solid, spooky moments along the way. The romance isn't anything special, but at least the reincarnation angle gives us a good foundation for why Emma and Mike are so instantly attracted to one another.
There are some questionable character actions later in the book, but nothing that outraged me too greatly. This was an enjoyable romantic suspense book that handled its supernatural element much better than most other books.
June 30, 2024
This book was a mindless beach read. Sexist overturns, flat characters, and a strange plot. The house was my favorite character.
November 21, 2015
I picked this up on a recommend from PBS and what a awesome book it was! Emma, an artist had decided to return to a small SC town. She comes upon a house that needs a lot of work, but feels she must have. She hires sexy Mike Ruhl as a handyman. Right after she moves in, things start to go wrong in a house that Emma can't explain. What is up with the cat that no one else seems to be able to see? If you like your romantic suspense with a touch of paranormal then this book is for you.
October 24, 2019
I really enjoyed this book. I couldn't put it down. My only problem with it is that the closest person to the villian saw no signs of the evil lurking beneathe the surface.
Emma buys a house that she's seen in her mind's eye since she was five. It's haunted.
She meets her contractor, Mike, and there's instant attraction, like they already knew each other. Reincarnation?
The only part of the book that grossed me out was that Mike's sister is married to someone old enough to be her grandfather. There's no reasonable explanation given for that.
If you like paranormal books with lots of twists and turns, this one's for you.
Emma buys a house that she's seen in her mind's eye since she was five. It's haunted.
She meets her contractor, Mike, and there's instant attraction, like they already knew each other. Reincarnation?
The only part of the book that grossed me out was that Mike's sister is married to someone old enough to be her grandfather. There's no reasonable explanation given for that.
If you like paranormal books with lots of twists and turns, this one's for you.
January 30, 2024
Good ending
February 22, 2024
I don't know why, but I kept postponing reading this book. Definitely different than what I normally read but was intriguing.
January 15, 2013
All her life, artist Emma Beck has been incorporating elements of a particular house in her paintings. Then she discovers the name of her birth mother, and visiting the town she was from, she finds that exact house, and has to have it. It's a place that has long given the townspeople the creeps, so she doesn't have any trouble acquiring it.
Then she moves in, and all sorts of weird, eerie things start happening, from sudden feelings of terror, to hearing strange sounds, to a ghostly cat. Not to mention, her unexplainable feelings of recognition when she meets local contractor Mike Ruhl, who seems to feel just the same sense of belonging with her, and the fact that (surprise, surprise!) he has shown up in her pictures before, just as the house.
This was disappointing. It starts quite strongly, with an intriguing plot and paranormal elements that are actually quite scary, as well as interesting. There's not only a mystery regarding Emma's mother's fate, including just who Emma's father was, but something clearly happened in her house many years ago, something tragic, and the house wants Emma and Mike to discover the truth. I also loved Emma's job as a painter of cover art for fantasy and sci-fi novels, which was a really fascinating little nugget.
Unfortunately, it just didn't gel. The supposedly scorching hot chemistry between Emma and Mike felt overdone and fake. I liked them both, and bought that they liked each other and were probably quite well-suited, but the intensity of the relationship Lisle was writing between them didn't suit the characters. I guess that kind of was the point, that this is something completely unlike them, but rather than it coming across as two people feeling something they'd never felt before, it came across as an author telling me they were feeling something they weren't.
And then we get to the last third, or so. Emma and Mike start rushing to mistaken conclusions so abruptly they gave me whiplash (completely unwarranted conclusions, too, with no logic whatsoever), and the finale was ridiculously and laughably over-the-top, ending the book on a very sour note, and in a way that didn't fit the rest of the story.
MY GRADE: A C-.
Then she moves in, and all sorts of weird, eerie things start happening, from sudden feelings of terror, to hearing strange sounds, to a ghostly cat. Not to mention, her unexplainable feelings of recognition when she meets local contractor Mike Ruhl, who seems to feel just the same sense of belonging with her, and the fact that (surprise, surprise!) he has shown up in her pictures before, just as the house.
This was disappointing. It starts quite strongly, with an intriguing plot and paranormal elements that are actually quite scary, as well as interesting. There's not only a mystery regarding Emma's mother's fate, including just who Emma's father was, but something clearly happened in her house many years ago, something tragic, and the house wants Emma and Mike to discover the truth. I also loved Emma's job as a painter of cover art for fantasy and sci-fi novels, which was a really fascinating little nugget.
Unfortunately, it just didn't gel. The supposedly scorching hot chemistry between Emma and Mike felt overdone and fake. I liked them both, and bought that they liked each other and were probably quite well-suited, but the intensity of the relationship Lisle was writing between them didn't suit the characters. I guess that kind of was the point, that this is something completely unlike them, but rather than it coming across as two people feeling something they'd never felt before, it came across as an author telling me they were feeling something they weren't.
And then we get to the last third, or so. Emma and Mike start rushing to mistaken conclusions so abruptly they gave me whiplash (completely unwarranted conclusions, too, with no logic whatsoever), and the finale was ridiculously and laughably over-the-top, ending the book on a very sour note, and in a way that didn't fit the rest of the story.
MY GRADE: A C-.
July 23, 2008
Between the Martian Death Flu and Norwescon, I got thrown fairly hard off the reading as of late. But I was in the mood for a light supernatural-y, suspense-y sort of story--inevitable, after re-reading some Barbara Michaels. This time, though, I wanted one I hadn't actually read yet. So I turned to Holly Lisle and Night Echoes.
This was a perfectly enjoyable little novel, though there is nothing terribly surprising in any of its elements. Plucky Young Heroine impulsively purchasing Spooky Old House is a plot we've seen before, as is the reincarnation of ghosts never laid to rest. But Lisle does a pleasant job with them, and I give her extra points for her heroine being a painter of cover art for science fiction and fantasy novels. That is, I admit, a profession I haven't seen portrayed much in books. ;) Three stars.
This was a perfectly enjoyable little novel, though there is nothing terribly surprising in any of its elements. Plucky Young Heroine impulsively purchasing Spooky Old House is a plot we've seen before, as is the reincarnation of ghosts never laid to rest. But Lisle does a pleasant job with them, and I give her extra points for her heroine being a painter of cover art for science fiction and fantasy novels. That is, I admit, a profession I haven't seen portrayed much in books. ;) Three stars.
December 31, 2009
Emma Beck returns to her family town wanting to discover the truth about her past and her fascination with a house. This house has featured in her paintings for years. When she moves in strangely she starts finding that she's painting scenes in her sleep, or is it her? There are strange ghostly happenings.
Mike Ruhl is the contractor hired to fix up the house. Emma is finding him creeping into her paintigs, sometimes dressed in a confederate uniform. As time goes on they find themselves drawn more and more into the mysteries of the past.
I liked it, it is pretty predictable but the two main characters drew me in and made me want more from them.
Mike Ruhl is the contractor hired to fix up the house. Emma is finding him creeping into her paintigs, sometimes dressed in a confederate uniform. As time goes on they find themselves drawn more and more into the mysteries of the past.
I liked it, it is pretty predictable but the two main characters drew me in and made me want more from them.
January 24, 2015
Haunted houses and reincarnation both subjects that you'd think I'd be interested in seemed to fall short of my expectations in this book. While not totally predictable, it had many common elements. I found one spot in the book that the right mixture of tension and suspense but for the rest, only fair reading.
February 2, 2009
I picked up this book, started reading, and didn't stop until I was done with it. (Which means I stayed up way past my bedtime. CURSE YOU, MS. LISLE!!!) It's been years, at least a decade, since I was grabbed so much by a book that I read it from cover to cover in one sitting. Two thumbs up!
December 22, 2011
When was the last time a ghost story kept you up at night? i don't mean creepy gross horror, I mean spine-tingling check under the bed just in case ghosts?
THAT was my reaction reading this book. Ghosts, suspense AND romance? Who could resists!
THAT was my reaction reading this book. Ghosts, suspense AND romance? Who could resists!
November 11, 2012
I thoroughly enjoyed this paranormal romantic/suspense novel.Was the first book i've read written by Holly Lisl and i would definitely read another book of hers.The main characters Emma and Mike are very likeable and the merging of the past and present mysteries is done very well.
August 28, 2016
This was a quick read, and an interesting read. However, I do not agree with some of the topics presented, so it was more of a "fun" read. I enjoy mysteries, but the romance here (pretty much one scene and some other scattered comments throughout) was totally unnecessary in my opinion.
September 7, 2009
A great find. I've read others by Lisle but somehow missed this one when I came across it in a used book store. It was one I couldn't put down with good characters and lots of twists and turns!
August 12, 2016
Still an enjoyable read because it's Ms. Lisle. I'm just not as enamoured of her non-fantasy stories. The paranormal part is kind of predictable but good.
January 28, 2011
Review to be added later.
November 21, 2011
I couldn't put this book down! It was just the right mix of romance and thriller. I also found the reincarnation aspects very intriguing.
May 24, 2013
Exciting, thrilling, suspenseful. It kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time! A must read for those who are interested in romantic/suspense/horror books.
September 19, 2013
It's a very good story. A few typos and errors towards the end but it doesn't take away from the story. I highly suggest it.
April 25, 2024
This book was so amazing ! I haven't read many books that can find a good balance between the suspense and the romantic stuff, but this one made the cut. Loved it !
July 22, 2014
Excellent! Finally, a well conceived romance with a historical and paranormal spin. The mystery was captivating and I couldn't put it down.
April 2, 2016
easy read, however i get spooked by paranormal books so i wanted to get to the end quickly. This sent chills down my spines at some points
April 22, 2022
Something about this book is pure magic to me. The perfect mix of romance and suspense and mystery. I can’t stop reading it
January 7, 2016
My first by this author. It was okay for me. I will probably try this author again.
July 12, 2009
This was a pretty decent book, easy read and enjoyable.
May 26, 2012
Well written. The plot tied together and made sense.
Displaying 1 - 28 of 28 reviews