I loved this book (read it in 2 hours) but it was totally not as expected from the blurb. That suggests it‘s a ghost story with a recently-deceased Max watching his girlfriend Hannah, but that‘s only a very minor part of this utterly fascinating novel.

It‘s quite a tough read though, covering past trauma and abuse amongst other difficult topics.

Hannah’s boyfriend, Max, didn’t believe in the afterlife - until he died. Set between a goat farm in Australia and London, the novel takes us between the perspectives of Max as he watches Hannah try to navigate grief and life without him, young Hannah and her sister, and Hannah in the present day, haunted by the ghosts of her past.

From his otherworldly position, Max is almost as clueless as the reader is to Hannah’s secrets and her reasons for being estranged from her family. Although described as a ghost story, it didn’t feel like a typical one, which I enjoyed. The novel is compact and reveals itself slowly, but is consistently engaging. Hannah’s torn sense of identity and how this affected her life was well observed. She struggles to come to terms with devastating events that throw all she has known in Australia, off balance, whilst also attempting to learn about her family's past living in London, and why they had to emigrate.

The Echoes is a unique take on intergenerational trauma. It ended up being heavier than I thought going in, although it is astutely crafted and does have its moments of comic relief. As well as trauma, it sensitively explores themes of colonialism, death, and complex familial relationships. It was also beautifully described; I could picture rural Australia vividly.

Having previously read and loved Evie Wyld’s work, I was delighted to be granted access to her latest book, The Echoes. The premise - a man having died and being tied to the flat he shared with his girlfriend - was right up my street. Unfortunately the book didn’t quite click for me.

I started off enjoying the characters and finding the switching narratives easy to follow, but in the end there seemed to be too many voices and I really struggled to connect with the book overall. Don’t get me wrong, Hannah has an incredibly interesting (though very heartbreaking) past, but I found her dead partner’s voice wasn’t really necessary to the plot and maybe the story that had to be told would have better suited a coming of age type book from Hannah’s perspective (for me, at least). Though I understood what the author was trying to do, how pain and abuse can echo and cause more pain and abuse.

The writing was beautiful though and I look forward to what Wyld writes next.

Huge thanks for allowing me early access to this one!

Well, I wasn’t expecting a book that is a relatively short read to hit me so hard emotionally.
This author really knows how to delve deep to grab the readers heart and soul and drag those feelings to the surface.
The book follows a ghost of a man after he loses his life to an accident, as he follows around his grieving partner left behind. Finding out more about her than he knew whilst alive.
I know that sounds fantastical but honestly, it never felt more real.
I’ve not read anything written by this author before, but I guarantee, I’m going now to have a look at her previous publications.
So good!

A phenomenal book, offering little drops of a backstory beautifully woven throughout. For such a short book, this packed in quite a lot of heavy themes and larger than life characters.
Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the chance to read this ARC.

A complex and compassionate novel, written extremely well by it's author Evie Wyld (The Bass Rock).

It's the story of Hannah and Max, present day, living in a flat in London. Max, when we meet him, is a ghost following his demise after an accident. Unable to leave the the flat, he can only stay and watch Hannah living in her grief. Wonderfully told from Max's view point, it also allows him to realise why it was that Hannah never talked much about her family and life before moving to England.
Tackling the subject of generational trauma, each character in the book feels authentic, and as we move through different time periods and countries the characters and wonderfully descriptive writing never meant I felt confused or wondering where I was in the story.

After The Bass Rock and now The Echos I feel it's high time I read another of Wyld's novels.

A powerful trauma narrative where we see in fragmented kaleidoscopic chapters called “then”, “after” and “before “ how the past echoes down through the generations. Hannah, an Australian, is living in South London and coming to terms with the sudden death of her boyfriend. As a ghost he observes her, providing an element of comedy in what is a relentlessly somber novel.
I can’t say I “enjoyed” The Echoes, but there are so many hints and images the reader doesn’t understand, you have to keep reading to find out. Eventually there are moments of understanding when a later scene reveals what had been a mystery and you find yourself thinking “Ah! That’s why she makes so many cups of coffee and doesn’t drink them”.
Evie Wyld has written another compelling novel which left me thinking how the legacy of colonialism still casts a dark shadow on so many lives.

The Echoes is the fifth novel by award-winning Australian author, Evie Wyld. Max, the less-favoured son of James and Emily, teaches writing at a London university. He has never believed in ghosts, but now he is one. Stuck in the flat he shared with his girlfriend, Hannah, ignorant of how he died and, mystified as to what is keeping him there, he tries, with mixed success, to make his presence felt.

Hannah escaped her life in rural Western Australia to live in a flat in London, in view of the place she has felt homesick for, ever since she first saw a photograph of her maternal grandmother, Natalia, standing in front of Natalia’s grandfather’s Barcombe Avenue house. In London, she can become someone else. Questions from Max about her family are evaded; letters from her mother are ignored; secrets and lies cover things she doesn’t want to remember.

Kerry and Piers bring up their daughters Rach and Hannah on their goat farm, a corner of a place called The Echoes, near Wilma, WA, where once stolen children were trained in the schoolhouse by Francis Manningtree’s mother. Uncle Tone and his girlfriend Melissa are there too. Piers might be the only one who doesn’t have a past he wants to forget, the only one who doesn’t have memories and bad feelings he buries in the dirt.

Mrs Manningtree would say “Yes it was, of course, hard for a child to be taken from its family, but it was all for the good. Imagine not having a roof, a bed, canned food to eat, a lavatory to sit on. They were different, the Blacks, they didn’t feel the same about their families, they got over things quicker, were used to it. Often when they arrived they didn’t even know how to wash themselves, poor things, basic hygiene escaped them” but Francis is no longer convinced. His second son acts to effect a rescue.

Why Hannah meticulously makes multiple cups of coffee but never drinks them, why she paints their flat in dark colours, why she keeps a small cube of broken green glass, mysteries to which Max may never learn the answer, even if the patient reader eventually does.

Why Kerry bakes inedible cakes and jam tarts, why Anthony eats them, why Kerry downplays her cleverness, her sharpness, her seriousness, with silliness, are things that Piers doesn’t understand. Anthony does, though: “She is hiding herself for safety. Rach, a carbon copy of how Kerry used to be. She’s funny and sharp and tough.”

Melissa does, too: “they are both pretending at something – just like a child’s tea party. They’ve both reached for something beyond them and in order to keep up the pretence they have to be different people, so that when truth comes looking it won’t recognise them.”

Multiple narrative voices, two in the first person, relate a story over three timelines that are clearly delineated. The title could apply to the place where Hannah and her sister grew up, but there are lots of echoes within the story, and repetitions. The reader might wonder if victimhood of child sexual abuse is inherited, not through the genes, but an echo of lived experience. Might there be an identifiable traumatic cause up the ancestral line?

Wyld sets her scenes with evocative descriptive prose; her characters, multi-faceted and complex, can’t help drawing the reader’s empathy. Moving and powerful.
This unbiased review is from an uncorrected proof copy provided by NetGalley and Random House UK/Vintage.

I ended up thinking this was a well-done and introspective book, dealing skilfully and poignantly with trauma and its aftermath... but I have to say until about two-thirds of the way in, I didn't really feel much. It was readable and I didn't have anything bad to say about it, but I felt like the book (and all the praise I've heard about it) had passed me by. So, mixed feelings, but it was a horribly tense read at times and I think Evie Wyld did pull it all together in the end.

Ex-pat Australian Hannah has travelled thousands of miles to escape her family and the secrets they hide but when her boyfriend dies unexpectedly, grief forces Hannah to remember the cycles of trauma. Max cannot escape the flat he stayed in with Hannah and he wants to protect her still but he has no corporeal being so he tries to help her confront her past.
This is a very beautiful love story that is hidden under layers of history. I love Wylde's writing, it is dreamy and ethereal even when describing quite unpleasant things. The life of the 'bogan' family is pitched just right, confronting racism, abuse and violence in the bush without being graphic - the reader has to fill in the gaps.

One of the first person narrators in this novel is absurdly the ghost of a creative writing lecturer spying on his partner trying to move on (from him and from her past) and I still thought it was a beautifully written and emotive read. Such is the power of Evie Wyld.

Evy Wyld can do nothing wrong. Loved the book. Wyld has a with words that keeps you reading until past your bedtime. Bought this for our municipal library.

I'm already an Evie Wyld fan, and this novel is another tour de force. It has her hallmark style of intricate layering and different timelines and character perspectives. But the central anchor is Hannah (Australian) whose partner Max dies early on in the novel and continues his narrative as a ghost in her life. Hannah and Max live in London, and Max muses over why Hannah has never introduced him to her parents. She fobs him off with some rather limp excuses, but we (the reader) go back into her childhood to find out why. Wyld handles a common theme with ingenuity and skill. I loved it.

In this captivating novel, we follow Hannah, an Australian woman living in a London flat with her boyfriend Max. The flat stands close to a house where her grandmother once lived before relocating to Australia. The narrative unfolds across three timelines:

Before - delves into Hannah and Max’s relationship, exploring their time together and the complexities that define their bond.

After - introduces an unusual yet compelling thread—the ghost of Max narrates from beyond, adding a poignant and haunting layer to the story.

Then - transports us to Hannah’s childhood, focusing on her upbringing in a house known as ‘The Echoes.’ This land once housed a school where Aboriginal girls were taken from their families for training.

This multi-layered story intricately weaves together past, present, and supernatural elements, creating a rich tapestry of love, loss, and legacy.

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The story unfolds with a distinct charm, its narrative rich and the prose beautifully crafted. Yet, it is the ending that truly elevates the entire book—a conclusion so satisfying and exquisite, it feels like the only fitting way the tale could have ever come to rest.

I finished this, last night, and it was one of the finest pieces of writing I’ve read in a long while! The tale is enthralling and emotional but it goes so much deeper than this! I honestly cannot recommend this enough and Evie Wyld is fast becoming one of my auto-buy authors!

DNF - I'm not sure what part of this book didn't work for me but I found my mind wandering as I read it & couldn't motivate myself to continue. I am interested to see what else this author gets up to.

This is deceptively simple novel, describes the relationship between Max and Hannah and the secrets in her past. It’s no spoiler to say that Max is a ghost, who is trying to protect Hannah as she processes her grief from losing him. Hannah’s backstory and childhood is truly harrowing at times and her family history shows how she’s had to deal with the ‘echoes’ from her past. The authors writing is excellent and not a word is wasted or out of place. I will be looking forward to reading the authors next novel. Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC of this novel in return for an honest review.

Hannah, an Australian woman, lives in a flat with her boyfriend Max. When Max dies, he finds he remains in the flat as a ghost. The novel switches between ‘Before’, Max and Hannah’s relationship before his demise; ‘After’, Hannah’s grief; and ‘Then’ which takes us back to Hannah’s life in Australia.
The Echoes is a powerful novel, beautifully written, covering a number of heavy themes in a warm, unique way.

This novel was masterfully written. Flickering between the perspectives of before then and now, the reader is taken through the life, or rather afterlife, of a ghost who is trapped in his flat that he previously inhabited with his girlfriend. The novel is carried through with a rather dark and mournful tone, and yet I couldn't help but also sense a bit of hope as I was reading. Perhaps that indicates a deeper meaning to this novel: the beauty in life after death, and what it truly means to continue living without our loved ones physically beside us.

At its core, Wyld created such an intimate narrative that deals with grief and loss, and the way in which this 'echoes' through our life for eternity. Grief never goes silent, we just lean into the noise and gently grasp at whatever whispers we can retrieve of our loved ones.

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Random House UK, Vintage for the e-ARC