Barrington Stoke are the UK’s leading publisher of high interest fiction aimed at kids with lower reading ages and are Dyslexia friendly. The content of the excellent EchoStar is aimed at kids of eleven plus, who have a reading age of around eight, but this was such a tight story anybody could read it and it had me hooked for a highly entertaining hour. Barrington Stoke has been the market leader for hi/lo books for a number of years and in recent times have attracted many leading YA authors and I always take a particular interest when a hi/lo book is written by an author I am a fan of. I have read most of Melinda Salisbury’s dark fantasy and horror fiction and was intrigued how she would fare with shorter, easier to read fiction. If you have never come across Melinda, my top tips include the Sin Eater’s Daughter series (2015-17), Told Back the Tide (2020) and Her Dark Wings (2022).

It is also heartening to see that Barrington Stoke, who historically focused on realistic issue-based fiction, are now releasing much darker fiction, 2023 saw Hiliary McKay release ghost story Jodie and YA horror author Cynthia Murphy gave us Welcome to Camp Killer. EchoStar gripped from the very start, fourteen-year-old Ruby discovers that her best friend Deva is using an experimental type of AI technology to help her at school, she has a tiny camera in her classes and via an earpiece the computer helps her answer questions and get better grades. Apart from drama, Ruby is doing terribly at school and if her grades do not improve will not be allowed to go on a summer drama course. Seeking help from the AI, she uses Deva’s passwords to access the information she needs to track down the shadowy AI. In doing so, she compromises Deva’s deal who gets cut out of the AI experiment. This leads to the girls falling out and Ruby finds herself alone and without anybody except the AI. This was a very clever book, as it pitches the insecurities of teenage girls, friendship issues, bullying and the hustle and bustle of school life absolutely perfectly. It was an easy, but gripping read and an incredibly well-structured story which will hook everybody. For readers interested in this sort of AI technology and the threats it poses I also recommend Naomi Gibson’s gripping Every Line of You (2021). AGE 8-TEEN.

Echostar is a brilliantly written, tense, thrilling book exploring the dark side of new technology.

When Ruby's best friend Deva suddenly improves her grades at school Ruby discovers that she's using Echostar a new tech app. When Ruby seeks out the same app, everything starts going wrong. She falls out with Deva, and things take a creepy turn when she realises that Echostar is always listening to her.

I loved this book. The ending made me scream. Another stunning book from Melinda!

This was a good read!

EchoStar follows Ruby as she discovers a top secret app that uses AI to help others with their school work and social situations. But everything is not as it seems, and it soon turns sinister with the app soon becoming more foe than friend.

Salisbury is introducing the conversation of internet safety and privacy to young readers, warning of the danger of these apps and to be cautious of new technology. Salisbury also makes a good point that for many of us, our phones are our lives. It has all our data, our ways of making connections and presenting ourselves, and that we must be careful with this.

I think this was a really good read. It was both thrilling and entertaining, while also being educational without being boring. Ruby was an excellent main character to follow. She wasn’t always perfect, and she had many struggles that many teenagers could relate to, and that made her real.

The only downsides to this is that I wish we had more resolution / content with Ruby and her mother, and that we had some deeper characterisation to supporting characters such as Deva and the friends she later made (who bullied Ruby).

Overall rating is around 3.5.

I loved this! It was haunting and creepy. But that perfect level of creepy that makes you want to read on while being a bit icked out! Mel writes baddies so well and I think the world is going to love this.

I've loved Melinda Salisbury since The Sin Eater's Daughter and to find out she was writing a book for Barrington Stoke was incredibly exciting.

Echo Star is a brilliant thriller tackling the issues of Privacy in the age of ever listening AI, internet safety and the minefield of teenage friendships.

I tore through the book ,well invested in Ruby's journey as she caught between her passion for theatre and her failing grades takes desperate measures and tries to use the same AI beta test her best friend Deva reveal she's secretly testing.
As Deva is kicked out of the beta test and their friendship falls apart the AI starts behaving strangely seeming to react to the bullying incidents Ruby faces.

Ruby and Deva's fallout is devastatingly realistic and reminded me of the vicious ways my own friendships implosions at that age as well as those I see day in day out in my classroom. The tech thriller aspects were truly chilling and raise valid questions and cautions in regards to the AI that has already become part of our daily lives listening to us 24/7 through our smart devices that are so integral to our lives.

Salisbury has once again absolutely smashed it and this a great short read for the average reader and a perfect thriller for dyslexic/reluctant readers or B1 Level non-native English speakers.

For a generation that has been raised with computers and the internet being an integral part of their lives, the concept of privacy is very different from the understanding shared by those of us who grew up in a web-free world.

And while we are constantly expected to applaud the advance of such technologies - particularly given the influence of corporate interests that directly benefit from those advances - the dangers of technology may not always be evident.

Humanity's approach to AI, for example, seems remarkably simplistic. It is as if we have been brainwashed into thinking that what is good for corporations like Microsoft and Apple, is good for all of us...!

So this story about two young girls and how the use of an app boosts the performance of one of them, to the other's great dismay, is very on point indeed. The Echostar app, like all the other technology of this kind, comes at a cost that people don't realise - and it is one that is not factored into the price tag.

Before we choose to hand all our rights to privacy - and in some ways, our entire lives - over to the phones, apps and tech that we so joyfully accept without considering the consequences, we all need to think twice. Because Echostar is always listening...

This is a timely read, and delivers an important message. It is good book for the target age group in particular, because they need to start learning to think for themselves if they are to retain any semblance of privacy and control over their lives. It gets 3.5 stars.