House of Echoes by Brendan Duffy

"A young New York City couple with a boy and a baby in tow, Ben and Caroline Tierney had it all, until Ben's second novel missed the mark, Caroline lost her lucrative banking job, and something went wrong with 8-year-old Charlie. When Ben inherits land way upstate from his grandmother, the two of them began to believe in second chances. But upon arriving in Swannhaven, a town that seems to have been forgotten by time, they're beset by strange sights and disconcerting developments and they begin to realize they might have made their worst mistake yet. But what dark secret is buried in this odd place? And will Ben and Caroline figure it out soon enough to save their young family?"--

I thought about giving it two stars. But then I decided, ‘Whyever would I?'

Can we say trite? If you think of every single trope in a stupid rich people lose jobs and move to a creepy small town to start over, you will have an idea of this book. If you make every single trope stupidly done by annoying characters, you will have this book.

I may be extra harsh here. But this author is a freaking EDITOR. He should know better. And his writing is nothing to write home about. It's serviceable, but I wouldn't say it's that great. There really is nothing outstanding about it.

I mean, I wasn't so bored I quit. But this was more pathetic than Winter People, which I really didn't like at all.

The kid is precocious. The townspeople are all weird and crazy religious nutjobs. The wife is bipolar, which is supposed to excuse her annoyingness (it doesn't, and it makes me angry that she's so annoying and that her mental illness is just a plot device). The dad is, of course, a pretentious writer. There is a red herring of a mountain man who brutally kills animals, but he's a GOOD GUY. There's child sacrifice too. La la la.

And I am SOOO tired of this trope: Family hard up on cash move from the Big City to Podunk Town and dump ALL their remaining money into a complete fixer upper, and they are surprised when they–GASP!–
RUN OUT OF MONEY QUICKLY!!! Especially in the Northeast. I mean, come ON. It is expensive. Why don't people in crap novels like this ever move to–I dunno–the MIDWEST, where you might actually be able to survive? And how about you don't buy a money trap?

No, everything about this book was nonsensical and stupid.

Oh, yeah! There is a needlessly brutal dog death.

He's apparently working on his next book. How about we don't, pal?

Apparently, I harbor angry feelings toward this book.

I think House of Echoes is best summed up by one of its lines:
“Ben had wanted a house with a story, but this one had too many of them.”

Have you ever walked up to a building, and just felt a sense of unease? A little needle of fear and discomfort that eases its way into your brain, even when you try to push it away as nonsense? Books like this remind me to pay attention to that feeling. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is. Very little is as shiny as it seems on the surface.

Brendan Duffy has delivered a solid, and rather addictive read in House of Echoes. From the first page, I was hooked into the lives of Ben and his family. Attempting to flee their old lives that were falling apart, they seize the opportunity to overhaul a huge, rambling homestead as an inn. Oh, and wouldn't you know it, they got it for a steal! We all know that never ends well. I was so anxious to see how things panned out.

As it turns out, this book is a beautiful slow burn of a read. It eases you in, building atmosphere and tension, until you just know things are coming to a breaking point. I think I was expecting a bit more action when I started but, truth be told, I liked this much better. Duffy is excellent at building dread. He started dropping little clues as to what was coming, and I didn't even notice. I almost want to go back and read this again just to pick on on the nuances I missed. This is a gorgeous psychological, suspense thriller. Just gorgeous.

Apologies for the vague review, but trust me when I say that you don't want spoilers! This is something to be savored. To be read on a hazy evening, snuggled under a blanket, preferably by a crackling fire. While the ending wasn't quite what I wanted, it still wrapped things up nicely. House of Echoes is a solid read. I'd absolutely recommend you give it a place on your reading list.

This was a little too similar to Chris Bohjalian's The Night Strangers....

A family buys a rambling old house that they're going to restore, moving to a small town after trouble in their past. In House of Echoes the family has two sons, The Night Strangers it was two girls. Something is off about the town, the people. And then the real strangeness happens.

Not a bad book at all, actually I probably enjoyed it a little more than The Night Strangers. Maybe if I read them two years apart instead of two weeks!