Thank you NetGalley for an advanced copy of WHERE ECHOES DIE by Courtney Gould. I would say I liked this story overall more than the last one by Gould, though they were both pretty good. The creepy, semi-sci-fi, culty vibe of this small southern Arizona town stuck in time was a cool setting with a mystery that pulled me through the story with the need to find out more. It was also easy to connect with the MC Beck through her raw grief over her mother's death. I found the conclusion satisfying and the writing beautiful and evocative. I'd recommend it!

While a challenge to live up to Goul'd debut, The Dead and the Dark, her sophomore novel proves that she is a master writer when it comes to haunted spaces.

Beck and Riley, sisters forced to grow up too fast, follow their mother's uneasy footsteps to a self-sustained community in Arizona. While their mother remains dead, her legacy remains in the rambling notes and conspiracies about the people of Backravel. Determined to understand the rotted heart of the town, time and memory slip around Beck in unusual ways as the community remains bright-eyed. Should she trust the daughter of the community leader, her charismatic father, or the smiling couple who gave the sisters a home? After all, grief is more than just a presence for Beck – it's a willing prison for Backravel.

While lacking some of the "oomph" of TDatD, Where Echoes Die is tinged in science fiction; the focus is on a fractured relationship between a mother and her daughters and how grief can prevent people from making their own lives. Gould's suspense ramps up with each chapter, compelling readers to try to finish the book in one sitting.

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Courtney Gould is quickly becoming a favorite author of mine. She has this ability to take these little spooky flyover towns and tell their stories with rich layers of sustenance. The Dead and the Dark took me by complete surprise with how much I enjoyed it. It was by chance that I even read it, considering, A.) I'm not really into a lot of horror, and B.) At the point of receiving an arc of TDatD, I'd never heard of the author. But that's what made me jump at the chance to read Where Echos Die early as well.

Where Echos Die follows Beck Birsching, who has been completely lost since losing her mother. So when a mysterious letter in her mother’s handwriting arrives in the mail with the words 'come and find me', pointing to Backravel, Arizona, Beck, along with her younger sister, Riley, take off with new purpose looking for answers about their mother. But there's something a little off about the people and town of Backravel. Then there's the mysterious facility where people receive treatments for unknown causes. No one seems to remember when they got there, and the only people who seem to know more than they’re letting on is the town’s leader (who provides the treatments) and his daughter, Avery.

“The people in this town are scared. They’ve lost themselves and they’re stumbling in the heat looking for something real. I’d rather be . . . I would rather be here, in this place. Where the echo dies. In the quiet.”

The Dead and the Dark and Where Echos Die are completely different stories and universes. But they share similar themes. They both deal with different forms of grief. (Another topic I tend to avoid.) But it never becomes overwhelming. And there are themes of love and family and the humanity and heart of a a community. Courtney's stories are so beautifully captivatingly written that it feels like you've just started the story when suddenly you've arrived at the end and wanting nothing more than to exist in these little universes just a little longer. But for now, I'll just wait patiently for Courtney Gould's next adventure.

“You can still love what you remember about him,” Beck says. “And you can still be mad at him for the bad stuff, too. The world doesn’t stop when you lose someone, I guess. You keep feeling.”



***Thank you to Netgalley, Wednesday Books, and MacMillan Audio for providing me with a review copy.***

WHERE ECHOES DIE
BY: COURTNEY GOULD

This is a Young Adult novel that explores grief and loss. It is interesting, and once you pick it up it is hard to stop reading. Beck and her sister Riley travel to Backravel, Arizona, by which they have just lost their mother, who was an investigative reporter. When they receive a letter in the mail from their mother who was obsessed with Backravel, saying "Come and find me," Beck and her sister Riley travel to Backravel hoping to find some answers about their deceased mother.

When they arrive there is something about this town that feels off. There are no cemeteries, churches cars, or pets.

This has an eerie vibe that is also spooky. As the two sisters settle down they think that the leader, named, Ricky Carnes, and his daughter Avery, who they're both told is the tour guide, they have the distinct impression that both Ricky, and his daughter, Avery know more than they are letting on. Nobody else seems to remember when they arrived or how long they have been there.

Beck is desperately trying to research Backravel, and further her understanding about a town that's the size of one thousand people by going to the library. It's not much of a library, with only a few bookshelves, and as she looks into articles about Backravel, she can't find out who wrote them or when. Riley has made friends with some of the local youth, while Beck is studying her mother's notes continuously. Trying to wrap her head around why her mother traveled there so many times, from their home in Washington. Riley, the younger of the two sisters didn't know about the mysterious letter from their mom. Beck had been the one who received the letter, with a Backravel, Arizona return address.

Both Beck and her younger sister Riley are staying with the Sterling family in their camper in the Sterling's yard. They have one son named Patrick, who is approximately the same age as the sisters.

This is my least favorite genre, which happens to be Science Fiction, and Young adults fiction. But I really enjoyed this and found the premise fascinating. There is a Treatment Center run by the town's founder that Beck is dying to get into. I think that the writing is strong, and the characters well developed. I loved this a lot more than I thought I would, even though I had to go back, and read the last 15% again to change my rating. Things made a bit more sense to me, after reading the ending twice. I'm still not quite sure that the ending can be plausible, without suspending belief. It might be a bit less well written, because it felt a lot of explanation is contained in the last 15% about the mystery of the novel. I think fans of Science fiction will love this original theme. I'm so glad that I read this, and even though I enjoy magical realism incorporated into novels, it isn't as big of a stretch of imagination as Science fiction seems to be. I think that I had to just go with it as it is.

Publication Date: June 20, 2023

Thank you to Net Galley, Courtney Gould, and St. Martin's Press--Wednesday Books for providing me with my ARC, in exchange for a fair and honest review. All opinions are entirely my own.

#WhereEchoesDie #CourtneyGould #StMartinsPressWednesdayBooks #NetGalley

Where Echoes Die is the chilling tale of sisters Beck and Riley. When their mother dies after a terrible illness, Beck is lost in grief until she receives a letter in her mother’s handwriting. The sisters secretly travel to Backravel, the mysterious town her mother was obsessed with. When they arrive, it soon becomes clear that there’s something very strange about the townspeople of Backravel. When they catch the attention of the town’s leader, Beck and Riley must decide whether they will risk it all to discover what their mother wrote her last story on.

Where Echoes Die is an absorbing and horrifying thriller. It’s the type of book where you’ll start looking for all the small clues to try and assemble the twisted puzzle. The plot is truly perplexing and it’s hard to read at times, especially because grief is such a strong theme. Beck’s loss and mourning of her mother is so poignant and evocative. Where the Echoes Die is a story that you’ll be thinking about and mulling over long past the last page. Readers who enjoyed Small Favors (Erin A. Craig), Where Darkness Blooms (Andrea Hannah), and A History of Wild Places (Shea Ernshaw) should check out this book!

Thank you to Courtney Gould, Wednesday Books, and Netgalley for a free ARC in exchange for an honest review.

For publisher: My review will be posted on Instagram, Goodreads, Amazon, Storygraph, and Barnes & Noble etc

Thoughts

This book was fairly entertaining, I guess, and it certainly surpassed my expectations. It definitely wasn't what I expected it would be in any way. Even so, I found my attention wandering again and again. I'd skim passages inadvertently and have to come back to reread. And that's never a good thing.

Pros
Foreboding: One thing that Courtney Gould really nails right from the beginning is a sense of overwhelming sort of foreboding. Everything feels unsettling, from the littlest details in the setting to the stilted nature of the (really very normal) dialogue. These girls have done everything wrong. They've driven out to the desert in a rattly old car (nerve-wracking enough!), and they've lied to their father about it. They've lied to their AirBNB host. They've elected to stay at an AirBNB. They know things feel off, but they don't stay together. And everything feels oh-so-suspicious. Readers, we know something's going to go wrong. It's all just a matter of when. This book is full of the classic horror movie type of fear and foreboding.

Shifty Narrator: Not only are these girls making bad choices in unsettling places while surrounded by untrustworthy characters, there's also a particularly strong sense that we can't trust Beck as narrator either. She has gaps in her memory, bits of time that are gone or go too quickly. This isn't a new phenomenon, either. She's experienced these... lapses before. She's also obsessed, particularly focused and definitely not telling the truth to her sister, the person closest to her in the world. If Beck isn't telling her sister, why would she be telling us? We can't trust her senses. We can't trust her to be truthful. We can't trust her at all.

Desert Despair: There's just something about the desert that makes it a great setting for an unsettling tale. Perhaps it's the barren nature of it, devoid of life. The desert itself proves a harsh and unforgiving landscape. Adding in elements of fear and foreboding only enhance that. This particular patch of desert landscape comes with old military ruins, a warfare test site full of bones, and a strangely thriving little town right amidst it all. And those vibes can't be beat.


Cons
Slow: This is one of the things that occurred to me again and again throughout the story. There's a lot of great groundwork. There's an incredible amount of buildup. There's not a lot of payoff to make it all worth it. It takes too long to get anywhere good. I found myself losing focus, skimming, coming back to read the same passage over again. It was a bit of a slog. It was a disappointment.

Vague: Again, there's a lot of buildup, and then... nothing's really explained. There are a lot of gaps, a lot of places to fill in and suppose. There's a lot of time to fill in these gaps, too. So by the time the "reveals" happen, I had already put some pieces into place. I had a vague picture of what was happening, and I was ready for the whole picture to come into focus. But it didn't. Because the extent of the "revelation" was what I had already put together. Which was, all in all, rather vague. Nothing is ever really, fully explained, and so the ultimate payoff doesn't happen. In a book that's more science fiction than it is anything else, to have none of the "science," none of the explanation to back it all up, was such an incredible disappointment.

Secrets: I was so incredibly frustrated with Beck. She's so close to her sister. She's done everything to protect her sister, to keep them together when their mom went off the rails. And yet she really thought she could drag her sister all the way out to the desert, to the place of their mother's obsession, without telling her the truth? Without giving her a reason why? This felt like a ridiculous decision, and a very stupid move. The ramifications were, therefore, frustrating.


Rating
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
6/10

Fans of Rory Power's Burn Our Bodies Down will appreciate this unsettling slice of Americana. Those who loved Rory Power's Wilder Girls will dive right into this not-quite-right town of secrets and experiments.

2.5 rounding up to 3 - I was intrigued by the Rory Power-esque YA horror pitch, which could have been such a cool story to read if the dread for the reader was kicked up a few notches. I think we learned what was going on way too soon, and that impacted my desire to keep reading. I struggled through the writing a bit, everything was laid out too much for the reader and I think some subtlety would have gone a long way. Riley as a a character was extraneous and didn’t add much to the story. But the idea and plot were such a cool concept and I like how the ending was done. A solid choice for the right reader but not something I feel personally knocked it out of the park!

This was just 'okay' for me. I liked some of the mysteries surrounding the town of Backravel, but I called a major twist early on which took some enjoyment out of it for me. It was a little longer than I thought it needed to be and left more questions than answers.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Overall, this book wasn't a bad one. It contained accurate depictions of grief and loss, and I would say that this is where the book shines. Without spoilers, the final scenes of the book were emotionally cathartic, and I really enjoyed the resolution that the author came up with. While I wouldn't say this book ever really scared me, and it did take a little bit to warm up, I did think the exploration of how different people deal with loss and how that can drive us to do some awful things to one another was compelling.

Unfortunately, I had difficulty connecting to the characters, which made it hard to get through. I liked the writing well enough and thought it was atmospheric and set the scene(s) well, but ultimately this just wasn't for me.

Unexpected throughout, it reminded me a little of the Blake Crouch Wayward Pines trilogy but younger. I enjoyed Gould's writing like I did with her first novel. Not liking Beck or Avery or Riley made this one a little harder but still a good story.

Thanks to Netgalley for the free copy in exchange for an honest review.

This didn't live up to my expectations, but I think that part of that is that it just isn't really in my genre wheelhouse. I definitely went in with the impression that this was going to be horror or thriller, just because the previous Courtney Gould novel I read solidly fell into that box. But WHERE ECHOES DIE skews more towards another genre, and I don't want to say much else lest it give anything away. Things that do work for me are still abound, however. I always like a small town with secrets story, especially when I seems like there is a cult-like mentality going on in that community that has to be parsed out by an interloper (therein putting them in danger). I also liked the building relationship between protagonist Beck and Backravel resident/daughter to the town leader Avery. I also liked having the flashbacks to Beck's mother in the months leading up to her death and as she spirals more into Backgravel obsession. But ultimately the genre it ends up being isn't really my thing unless there are VERY specific elements, and this one didn't really have it.

This is very much a 'don't take my word for it' situation, as I can see this one working for a lot of people. Check it out if it intrigues you!

Truthfully, Where Echoes Die erred more on the sci-fi realm, which felt weird. I love a good cult story, but this just didn't do it for me. Courtney Gould's writing showed promise, but the book as a whole was a little too overly dramatic.

An eerie desert town that draws people to it again and again, with citizens held under the sway of an enigmatic leader and strange goings-on.

I'm not sure what I expected, but it wasn't...this? For one thing, the plot leans much more sci-fi and speculative than YA horror as I had thought requesting this (the characters are from Washington so I grabbed it for that, too lol), and there are stronger cult vibes than I cared for. Comparisons to Don't Worry, Darling are apt in many places.

Protagonist Beck is unlikeable to begin with, and doesn't become any better. The first several chapters didn't pull me in, and the pacing left much to be desired. Unreliable narration and time losses pepper the plot, but I never found myself invested in why. I find Stepford Wives \ zombification of the masses plots uncomfortable, too, so a lot about this simply wasn't my jam.

If you want a YA sci-fi timey-wimey mystery with some sapphic romance, this might be for you.

Where Echoes Die is a compelling and satisfying thriller mystery that captured me early on and didn’t let up. The characters are complex and interesting and the story takes you on a wild journey that feels straight out of something along the lines of YA X-files. Very worth checking out!

I was very excited to receive/review this book. Mostly, because I am a huge fan of The Dead and the Dark and the fabulous cover. The story sounded promising so I was eager to give it a try.
I will admit that the first few chapters didn’t hook me right away and i did. take several breaks trying to get through it. Once I got through that though I was hooked and ended up having a great time with it. The ideas behind world-building and characters are so intriguing. This was such an interesting read that I'd definitely recommend to people who enjoy sapphic YA books.

Where Echoes Die follows Beck and her sister Riley as they investigate the town that their mother was so obsessed with before she passed away. Let me tell you, the town is the very definition of creepy but like in an overly creepy way. Just like walking through an abandoned building or moving through a park that should be filled with screaming kids but is dead quiet.

As Beck begins to get closer to Avery, the daughter of the mysterious cult like leader of the town, it’s clear that things are very much not what they seem.

I loved the mystery of this story. It definitely had me guessing till the very end (aliens?? Weird mystical rocks?? Magic???). I especially loved how we get to see slowly see the sinister side of the town and how terrible it actually is.

This was definitely an enjoyable read and I appreciated Beck and Avery’s relationship too!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for allowing me to review this title.

Beck Birsching and her sister Riley travel to mysterious Backravel to discover the secret of what happened to their recently deceased mother.

Have you ever played The Sims 4 Strangerville Mystery? Because this book reminded me a lot of that. It's the desert the odd zombification of people, the mind control-esque feeling of the book. It was just odd to me. Not to mention that I didn't get enough fleshing out of the characters. It was just strange to me, no pun intended.

Thank you so much to St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review!

I really enjoyed this book. The story was super captivating -- a town in Arizona suspended in time. The main character, Beck, had an interesting personality that I loved. Overall, I think this is a fantastic thriller with plenty of twists and turns to consume readers.

Thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's Press for giving me an ARC in exchange for a review!
I loved Courtney Gould's debut novel, The Dead and The Dark, so I was super excited to get my hands on her new release.

Where Echoes Die is a paranormal mystery/thriller following our main character Beck who is determined to uncover the secrets of the strange town that sucked in, and may have played a part in the death of her mother. The town of Backravel, Arizona is bizarre and its citizens are secretive. People who stay in town leave with no memory of their time there, and when Beck tries to ask questions, no one is willing to give her any answers. Similar to Gould's first book, the writing was fast-paced and the mystery was compelling, but what I liked the most was the themes of loss, grief, and ultimately, acceptance that run through the book. Gould does a great job of exploring the real world suffering of the death of a loved one through supernatural forces. If that sounds interesting to you, I definitely recommend picking up this book!