Where Echoes Lie is a contemporary young adult novel set in rural Kentucky which features all the trappings of a horror story, but surprisingly its focus is more on exploring feminist themes about reclaiming your power, controlling your own narrative, and unpacking how generational trauma is passed on unless someone breaks the cycle.
Rena Faye is a remarkably responsible teenage girl who has been brought up to do her duty by her family without question, tirelessly working away in the family motel. While she chafes at the double standards and inequality in how her parents treat her compared to her brother, she’s not one to rock the boat. But when her long-awaited vacation away with her beloved grandmother is callously cancelled and she’s expected to slave away for free at the motel over her summer break, Rena Faye begins to chip away at her family’s stranglehold on her and rebels to find her own path.
If you’re wondering where the horror elements come in, be warned that the actual scares are a long while coming—it takes a third of the book before we finally have a sighting of the ghost bride! Rena Faye is an engaging protagonist with a relatable struggle and the injustice of her parents’ treatment of her makes it easy to invest in her efforts to stand up to them and fight for her independence. It’s an excellent coming-of-age narrative, but unfortunately way too sparse on spooky encounters for a horror novel. Rena Faye also seems a bit too credulous in assigning certain events to the curse’s influence for someone as practical and level-headed as she’s been portrayed. Without going into spoilers, it’s the equivalent of deciding on impulse to gorge on an entire chocolate cake and then blaming her decision to indulge on the curse!
Where the novel shines is in its examination of urban legends and delving into the way that stories are transformed into urban myths. Before we ever meet the ghost bride, we’ve heard a few different renditions of her story which each teller swears to be the real and true version, and each reflecting more about the individual quirks of the teller instead of the truth. Fearing that her grandmother’s claim of a curse on their family is true, Rena Faye fervently digs into the history of the ghost bride to try and discover what really happened to her and comes to a startling, life-changing discovery in the process.
While she’s dealing with tyrannical parents and ominous portents, Rena Faye thankfully isn’t on her own—she has the staunch unwavering support of her cousin and best friend Daisy who is a fun vivacious character that livens up every scene she’s in. The closeness between the two girls is a highlight of the story, and as someone who was very close to her cousins as a teenager, I always love to see strong bonds between cousins depicted in YA. It’s an especially nice touch that the girls are given the majority of the focus throughout the book as opposed to Rena Faye’s on-and-off-again boyfriend Chance and stealth love interest Arden.
Mature readers looking for thrills and chills this spooky season will need to adjust their expectations going into this to avoid disappointment; the intermittent sprinkling of mildly scary scenes is more suited to readers on the younger spectrum of the YA audience. However the universal themes of breaking free from restrictive expectations, knowing your self-worth and working to achieve your dreams make this accessible to readers of all ages, and its focus on feminine strength, reconciliation and healing provide a heart-warming, feel-good arc. If you like the sound of a ghost mystery with fun, nuanced characters, and complicated family dynamics that conceal murky secrets, this is the book for you!
Where Echoes Lie is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore, as of November 2nd 2021.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
In this eerie thriller of a ghost story, a teenage girl must solve the mystery of the ghost bride that has haunted her community in rural Kentucky for more than a century.
Rena Faye believes in things she can see and touch, or at least capture through the lens of her camera. Things like the moonbow–a gray-and-white colorless bow that arcs out of Cumberland Falls every month when the moon is full. This natural phenomenon is what keeps her family’s motel business afloat, and what puts their tiny Kentucky town on the map. That, and the legend of the ghost bride.
Along with everyone else who has grown up near the falls, Rena knows the tragic tale of the bride who walks the cliff on moonlit nights. But when her grandma tells her that the legend is real, and worse, that the ghost bride has cursed the women of their family, she dismisses it as just another of her mawmaw’s famous stories. But when Rena Faye’s life begins to fall apart, she must delve deeper into the stories surrounding the legend, and reexamine who she can trust, as well as the truth about her town and family history. before the curse takes everything–and everyone–she holds dear.
An eerie thriller of a ghost story filled with twists and turns until the final page.
