The beginning of this book creeped me out! I loved it!!

Sam & Nick are a couple. Nick writes for a travel magazine & loves to climb mountains. Sam is afraid of heights.

Nick climbs a little documented peak in the Swiss alps with Augustine.

Nick wakes up, face disfigured in a fall, claiming amnesia, unable to talk, Augustine is missing & presumed dead. Strange & creepy things begin happening.

The story takes you back and forth throughout time to solve the mystery! It’s a slow moving creepy book with interesting characters. The relationship between Nick & Sam felt very believable.

I had to stop the playback a few times and listen again to parts as I thought I missed something. It all came crashing together in the end, maybe a bit chaotically and quick but it didn’t leave me hanging. I have a renewed dislike for black birds.

I loved the way the chapters began with a quote from a classic creepy horror book.

The cover is spot on. The narration was fantastic.

The hardcover is on my Amazon Book Wishlist. Like Hex, this one will sit with me & I’ll reread it.

AUDIOBOOK
Travel journalist and mountaineer Nick is horribly injured while climbing and awakens from a coma with no memory of the event. He learns that his climbing partner is missing (presumed dead) and his face is horribly disfigured and completely wrapped in bandages.

His partner Sam is fearful yet committed to helping him recuperate and remember what has happened. However as the weeks progress it seems that Nick may have awoken a dark presence on a mysterious mountain that he scaled and that presence may have returned home with him.

A truly creepy story by the up and coming excellent Dutch writer Thomas Olde Heuvelt (Hex). I just love his writing and would have been frightened to turn the light off at night. If you love scary stories and are looking for ones that are well written and conceptually new, then #Echo is for you #Netgalley #Macmillanaudio

Thank you Netgalley for the advance audiobook copy of Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt in exchange for an honest review. I love his books! They are disturbing and funny and thoroughly engaging. I found myself simultaneously wishing for it to snow and be windy here and glad that it was sunny. This book is mostly told in two perspectives, Nick and Sam's. You can tell while listening how much these men love each other and how it saves and dooms them. I live 4500 elevation and have never wanted to climb mountains, other than the one I live on. I'm not an adventurer, but love reading about it, and this book made me want to hide in my room with all the lights on. Another amazing book by Thomas Olde Heuvelt. Can't wait for more to be translated.

I have never been as creeped out while reading a book as I was during the first chapter. The rest of the book isn't as intense, but the first chapter delivers such a promise of terror to come that it hangs over the rest of the book. Rather than run-for-your-life action-horror we instead get a looming dread hanging over a well developed loving couple, with a bit of uncomfortable Palahniuk-esque body horror.

The two main narrators offer different vibes, one feels more like refined classic horror while the other has a more modern feel, complete with pop culture one-liners. This really helped add variety to what otherwise might have been a slightly overlong book.

A truly creepy and beautiful story of love and possession. A strong 4.5 stars.

*I received this book for free through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*

The only thing worth reading in this book is the first chapter. After that, it focuses more on romance than horror. I wanted only Julia's story and a better atmosphere. This is so wordy and the other POV ruined the tone. It is very all over the place and too boring to be that long.

Thank you Macmillan Audio for the review copy!

I am 100% here for queer characters in horror. Queer characters being messy, being terrified, being angry, being villainous... That certainly wasn't the issue here.

The issue for me was with pacing. There's a totally disconnected (and rather long) opening scene with a totally different protagonist (we meet her in the context of the story later) and all this stuff happens to her with ghosts and people with no eyes, and she's all alone and there's some weather event... Well, I don't tend to like framed stories, and this bit of framing just... Didn't fit. It felt so out of place once the story started going.

Which, the story didn't really start going. The MC is speculating about everything without actually knowing things. And then he runs away and distracts himself. There just... Wasn't enough horror elements to keep me interested. And I didn't like Sam at all. So... I gave up.

Nick and his friend Augustin had visions of glory when they decided to climb a remote and little known peak in the Swiss Alps called Maudit. But instead of conquering the mountain, they find themselves vanquished. Nick awakes in the hospital after recovering from a coma; he’s been seriously injured and Augustin is missing. Nick feigns amnesia, bit he remembers everything, and he knows that he and his climbing partner were not alone on that seemingly deserted mountain. Creepy fun