Faced with financial ruin, Jocelyn and Luke Grant at first view the surprise inheritance of an Essex manor house from Joss' birth mother as a godsend. But who really sent the centuries-old house where boyish voices echo, drifts of icy rose petals appear and then vanish, and a chilling shadow threatens the safety of Luke and his toddler son?I enjoyed this very much, a B.
When Joss' second child is born, also a boy, it becomes apparent that only the males in the Grant household are threatened, and suspicion falls on Joss. To clear her name and save her family, she must confront and defeat a powerful, ancient presence.
This author was recommended to me as similar to Barbara Michaels. The first one I read, Midnight is a Lonely Place, was nothing like them, being more horror (and bloody-ish horror, at that!) than gothic paranormal, but this one was more like it. I love "haunted house" books!
House of Echoes was one of those books you simply can't breeze through. I was incapable of reading more than 30 or 40 pages in a row, so I read it very slowly, all the while reading other things. It wasn't that it was bad or boring, I just felt I'd probably enjoy it more like this.
Although... like Midnight is a Lonely Place, this book suffered from the sagging-middle syndrome. The middle third of the book was pretty slow, and the instances of haunting were much too reiterative. The editor should have tightened this, because it became a bit tedious after a while. It did work to create an atmosphere, but I got somewhat bogged down.
The book did pick up a lot near the end, and the conclusion was very exciting and highly original. I'm not sure how I feel about a certain well-known historical figure being used as one of the ghosts, but it was interesting.