ECHO NORTH by Joanna Ruth Meyer is a fun, relatively quick read which initially feels like a retelling of Beauty and The Beast. Set in India, this fantasy story involves Echo, a young woman who promises to live for a year with an enchanted wolf in order that her widowed father's life is spared. Echo and the wolf have some amazing adventures in a magical house that responds to commands and contains a library filled with books turned mirrors. Readers merely step into each story and when Echo does so, she meets others, including Hal, a young man who seems trapped in the books. Motifs and allusions to other fairy tales involving Tam Lin or Cupid appear. And soon, the suspense and action builds as the house starts to fall apart due to another wizard's power and Echo and the wolf are endangered. I felt like the ending was not quite the crescendo it could have been, but I enjoyed the read and will look for more from this author. ECHO NORTH was deemed "a first purchase for libraries" by School Library Journal and received starred reviews from both Kirkus ("Epic and engrossing") and Publishers Weekly ("a compelling, satisfying romantic adventure"). When you finish enjoying our copy look for other fantasy stories like Girls Made of Snow and Glass or Gilded Wolves.

Reads with a similar tone and style to Robin McKinley's BEAUTY. As such while it does not feel as inventive as it could, I enjoyed the more casual dialogue and updated characters--and I know that handing teen readers a book as old as BEAUTY can be a hard sell, so this is a welcome addition to my shelves. ECHO NORTH is a good addition to shelves where fairy tales or fantasy romance are popular. While the characters can feel a bit thin at times, the book has a strong message of empathy that will encourage readers to think deeper on character actions and reactions, which could make this book a good book club choice for libraries.

This was an amazing reimagining. I loved the tone of the book and the writing was engaging, as was the story. Highly recommended.

I received a digital copy of this book from Netgalley for an honest review.

This was much too long and oppressive just for the sake of being oppressive, in my opinion. The imagery was beautiful and it started out interesting but pretty soon I was bored with page after page of nothing of substance happening.

Echo North:

A wolf guarding over a disappeared Father. CHECK
A young girl who must make a terrible deal with said wolf to save her beloved Father. CHECK
A hidden castle with a secret, magical library. CHECK

I read this in one sitting as I was completely enthralled by it. It's not a simple fairy tale retelling, it's much more - a mashup of several fairy tales and the added bonus of Meyer's imagination.

This book is very tricky for me to rate. I absolutely adored the first half of the book but the second half really left me wanting more.

I feel like the pacing was a bit off. I wished we'd spent more time in the house learning all the secrets. All of that felt a bit rushed and I felt a bit disconnected from the rest of the story because I hadn't really been given the time to form an attachment to the character's plight.

A beautiful retelling that felt like a classic fairytale. I really loved this take on "East of Sun and West of the Moon but has a good amount of similarities with the Beauty and the Beast fairy tale.

An interesting story with twists and turns that were expected and unexpected.

Echo North is a retelling of many fairy tales, namely Norwegian Fairytales. Having never read Norwegian Fairytales, I was pleasantly surprised and couldn't put this book down. Echo is a quiet sort of character with a curiousness for stepping outside the box, though not much in life had given her the opportunity to explore those adventurous urges. The relationship she has with her brother and father is beautiful, though somewhat overshadowed by her cliche evil stepmother. The mysterious house full of mirror books was my favorite element of the world.

Overall, this was an enjoyable read, but I still wanted more: a more detailed world, more deeply developed characters, more background etc.

I got this book to review through NetGalley. I really loved this book! It's a great blend of faerie tales that is beautifully written. I whipped right through it and enjoyed every minute of it.

This book is a blend of some different fairy tales. Primarily it is a retelling of “East of the Sun and West of the Moon” but it also contains elements of “Beauty and the Beast” and “Tam Lin”.

Echo is scarred in an accident when she is young and is shunned because of this. Her father and brother love and support her, but her new stepmother is somewhat evil. When Echo’s father goes missing, Echo ventures into the woods desperate to find him. She does find her father but she also finds the white wolf from her childhood and ends up involved in a dangerous enchantment.

I loved so many elements of this book; the characters, the magical house in the woods, the enchanting book mirrors, and the evil enchantress. I loved the folklore about the Winds and how effortlessly Meyer blends all these folklore/fairy tale elements into a beautiful story.

Overall I highly recommend this book to those who enjoy fantasy folklore and fairy tales. It’s beautifully written and was an amazing read! I can’t wait to see what Meyer writes next.

This is a retelling of the Norwegian fairytale, East of the Sun, West of the Moon. I had no idea. I liked the description and so I decided to read the book. I started this morning and couldn’t put it down. It was so exciting and heart racing. I positively loved it!

For the most part I really enjoyed Echos perspective. She was the relatable quiet book loving type with a sense of adventure she never had the chance to nurture. I loved her relationship with her father and brother. I also liked the wolf, but I didnt understand how she was able to forgive him so quickly. Im all for forgiveness, but I feel like there has to be enough good there to justify it and I just didnt see that here. I didnt really feel their chemistry so I couldnt figure out why they loved each other. I also found it super frustrating to see Echo make the worse decision possible for the sake of advancing the plot. Despite predicting most of the twists early on I still found something compelling about our main characters journey to uncover the wolf's secrets.
I know this is a fairytale retelling, but its inspired by beauty and the beast so I wasnt expecting another evil step mother. Im just so over it. I would have liked at least one decent female character in Echos life besides the ones we meet at the very end, especially with the main antagonist also being a woman. The villains motivations were simply being cruel for the sake of being cruel and I personally want more from my villains. We also meet Mokosh whose visit with Echo outside the books was never explained, but I did end up really liking her. I thought her decisions made sense and she was well developped for a secondary character.
The conflict was exactly what you would expect from a beauty and the beast retelling, find a way to break the curse the enchantress cast, which I dont usually mind if its done right. Sadly in this case the main character intellect suffered to propel the plot in that direction. The setting and the atmosphere was definitely my favorite part of the novel. The house under the mountain and its library filled with magical portal books was amazing. I loved how each room was completely different from one another with their own unique magical element. I thought the mythology of the Four Winds and how they came to play into the story was great. I also found the old magic interesting, if a little under developed.
The plot has some unbelievable moments, like when Echo managed to run faster than a pack of wolves. I also wasnt the biggest fan of the books lesson which is pretty much that love can forgive huge betrayals. Id rather a message focused on the character realising their worth and knowing when they deserve better. Towards the end when things should be getting more intense the main character spends a bunch of time describing her repetitive and boring travel routine. The resolution of the conflict was a little too simple for me and just felt off. I did love the family reunion though. I also enjoyed the writing and how easy it was to binge read so Im willing to try something else from this author in the future.

Ah Yeah!! This is already going to be one of my top reads for 2019. I cannot tell you how much I love fairy-tale reimagining's even the lackluster ones, I still love them. So when an amazing well written comes along you know I will jump on that moth to a candle. I was seeing quite a few reviews stating this was a beauty and The Beast retelling and since it is one of my faves. I needed this. But it turns out its based of the Norwegian tale East of the Sun and West of the Moon and after reading this I need to find more material on East of the Sun and West of The Moon. But I digress..

This follows Echo the daughter of a book seller who hasn't always had the easiest life. An unfortunate encounter with a wolf left her face scarred and has been bullied for it. Echo's father goes missing and isn't seen for months until echo happens upon him half frozen in the woods with the very same wolf who scarred her. Echo makes a deal with the wolf ensuring her fathers safety.

Echo is now living in a sentient house with the wolf and a man named Hal. The house was honestly amazing any book lover wold love to be in the mirror book room. My jealousy is at its peak right now. But unfortunately its also falling apart. And if she looks upon the wolf from duck till dawn she will be evicted from the house. What's honestly the best part of the book you think you know where its going but then BAM you have your feet kicked out from under you. I love that, I love being surprised by books. I don't like guessing how things are going and then being right, I want to be wrong and surprised. And Echo North Did that.

The writing, the imagery that the author creates is astounding. I cannot say enough good things about this book.

Overall this is an epic retelling and an amazing fantasy and if you love either, neither or both you will still love this book for the writing and characters. highly recommend.

Thanks to NetGalley and Page Street Publishing Co., who provided a free advanced reader copy in exchange for my honest review. This review contains some allusions to events that MAY be considered SPOILERS. Read at your own risk.

2.5 stars

I guess I’m just not drinking the Kool Aid on this one. I REALLY, really, REALLY wanted to love this book. I love fairy tales, myth, and re-tellings of them; plus BONUS—the enchanting cover art. The early and frequent echoes (haha, see what I did there) of Beauty and the Beast and East of the Sun, West of the Moon, Tam Lin, and Echo and Psyche sucked me in immediately. I was interested in this relationship between Echo and mysterious wolf from the get go. Book mirrors that take you to magical worlds? A mysterious, malevolent entity? Sounds amazing! I would consider myself the ideal reader for this type of book.

So why was this book such a struggle to finish? The longer I read, the less I wanted to continue, which made me sad. What went wrong? I spent some time mulling this over before writing a review. I think the story and concept were on point, but it was executed poorly.

Ultimately, while I love a good re-telling, I felt the author grossly over borrowed, to the point that I felt brow beaten by pieces of stories. It was like, oh, did you catch that allusion there? And did you see what I did there? I mean, Echo has a mirror that will show her her father. Um, Belle, anyone? It felt very self-conscious and awkwardly forced.
I also felt it led to plot weaknesses and a lack of development in character motivations. Things just sort of happened over and over again, without sufficient setup or adequate foreshadowing, or even logical explanation-- and, perversely, it was still SUPER predictable, which was beyond frustrating. You can see the major “twists” coming from a mile away (Um, gee. I wonder who the wolf is…Duh.) Except for Echo, the other characters are just flat types, as you would expect in a fairy tale, but in a novel, I want more. Character motivations also strained credulity for me; for example, Echo’s willingness to trust the wolf after it is responsible for disfigured her, the evil stepmother, Ivan, etc…

When reading, I also couldn’t refrain from noting the absolutely absurd number of similarities with Roshani Chokshi’s, The Star-Touched Queen: a forbidden room of memory; reincarnation (reliving a story/discovering your true identity); talisman objects; binding things to balance the universe; a sad, haunted male protagonist; a malevolent female who threatens to thwart everything; the main character being stupid and doing the exact opposite of what she should do which ruins everything and then her trying frantically to make it all right, etc, etc, etc…. Can all that be an accident? Or was Meyer just on the same wavelength as Chokshi? I don’t know, but they are CRAZY similar.

Finally, some of the dialogue was just flat and groan worthy. I felt like half of the dialogue was stilted, fairy book language, and the other half was everyday contemporary speech. I wanted consistency. Also, the word choices sometimes made me bananas. Sometimes a $10 word is better than a $30 word. For example, “Trees marched like soldiers, their trunks stark against the susurration of the wind.” Susurration. Really?! I love words as much as the next bibliophile, but come on.

Overall, I feel like this type of story has been done, and there are other books, such as Chokshi’s that did it better. I would still recommend the book to anyone who enjoys fairy tales or re-tellings, such as Wrath & the Dawn or Hunted, but I’m not rushing out to buy this for our collection. If you just want a fairy tale with a happy ending, this will be ok for you, but it wasn’t enough for me.

A wholly enchanting novel, ECHO NORTH is something special for YA fantasy readers. The Gothic tone and imagery in this book made me feel as though I was reading a classic fairy tale. In addition to the evergreen themes of family and fate--I think the thing I loved the most about ECHO NORTH is that it's a love letter to storytelling, pure and simple.

Would you all like to know what kept me up new years eve until 1 am? it was not the obvious fact that it was new year’s eve, and staying up until 12am was what we are all supposed to do, right? No! It was the simple reason, that I was spellbound and entranced, by this beautiful fairytale of a book, and could not get away until I knew what happened. This tale captivated me and wouldn’t let go. This fable is a brilliant and magical retelling of a Norwegian tale called East of the Sun West of the Moon with references to other fairytales smattered throughout including Tam Lyn and Psyche.

It’s basic premise is that one day after her father leaves town and mysteriously disappears, Echo goes to look for him. She finds him on the brink of death. In order to save him she is sucked into a deal, by the same talking wolf which disfigured her face and whom, she saved years before. A deal that will define and change the rest of her life. Live with me for a year in my enchanted house under the mountain, and I will save your father. There is only one rule, you cannot look upon me at night. Desperate and scared, and propelled by the mystery surrounding him, she does as she is asked.

She is soon launched into a magical world she never knew existed. With an enchanted house, in each room a different magical wonder woven together like a tapestry; a magical library, with books explored through mirrors that one could travel into and experience, and a witch and a dreadful curse. She finds this world, on the edge of magic itself, dark, mysterious, lonely, full of peril, and wonder, and fantastical beyond belief. But more importantly, she finds a resiliency and strength in herself she never knew she possessed, the capacity to love beyond belief, and the courage to do what’s right even in the most dangerous of circumstances.

This book is filled with so many layers, it’s impossible to describe them all here, but suffice it to say, that if you let it, this story will weave itself into an incredible tapestry around you. It’s filled with so many different worlds that I just wanted to dive into and stay there forever. It’s filled with likeable and relatable characters that felt like friends. Hal, the love interest, the tortured and lonely wolf, Echo the heroine, and so many loveable side characters, I can’t choose. It’s filled with vivid prose and worldbuilding and just so much goodness, and magic, and love, I just can’t even….

All I can say is pick up this book when it comes out. If you love fairy tales, and magic and heart felt story telling that will get you lost in worlds you don’t want to leave, and heart wrenching secrets that will make you happy and sad all at the same time. Than do yourself a favor and pick up this wonderful, fable! Total 5 star read for me all the way! Thank you to Netgalley and Page Street Publishing for a Digital Review Copy for review. This comes out January 15 but you can pre order it, or put it on hold at your local library today!

Echo North is a book that will hook you. Sure, it's a retelling of a fairy tale, but it's so much more than that. The Beauty and the Beast vibes are obvious at the beginning, but then the story takes on a life of its own. It was only after reading the acknowledgments that I realized just how many stories this tale uses for inspiration - stories I've never heard of that now I intend to seek out.

I loved the world this was written in. Echo is a lovely character and the adventures she goes on are thrilling. But I did have a few issues with this book - the pacing and the motivation. The pacing starts out well, slows down, and then speeds up much too much. The ending happened so quickly that I'm still recovering. The motivation is similar - it's hard to tell this is intended to be a love story until more than halfway through. Echo squanders a year reading books and exploring when she could have been more believably falling in love and forming plans. Some small details could have changed both these problems, so I'm keeping my rating high, I love the spirit of this story and I'm glad Echo got her happy ending.

This book was so wonderful. The characters were well defined, with rich details and distinct voices. The world building felt layered and lush in its cold beauty, I loved the magic and sweeping love story. From the start I was rooting for our heroine, hoping she'd be able to escape the tough situation at home and to find her own way in the world. I'm a sucker for this fairytale and couldn't read this retelling fast enough.

Fairy tale with many of the tropes and archetypes. Interesting comparison to traditional tales. Intriguing characterization.

I cannot stop gushing about this book! Echo North is a retelling of the fairytale, East of the Sun and West of the Moon and it's an incredibly beautiful and enchanting adventure. Echo North reads exactly like a folktale and it reminds be a lot of Uprooted and The Nevernight Trilogy. The book follows Echo, a young girl with a scarred face, who accepts a deal with a mysterious wolf in order to save her father.

Echo is taken back to the wolf's house, where she must remain for a year, and is told to follows one rule: to not look at the wolf while he is sleeping. The wolf's house is definitely a sight to imagine! There is room with book-mirrors where Echo is able to "live" inside of the story and explore the world of the book. I mean, how cool is that?! While exploring the book-mirrors, Echo meets Hal and Mokosh and a romance begins to blossom between Echo and Hal.

I found myself completely wrapped up in this book and could not put it down, but at the same time I did not want it to end! Joanna Ruth Meyer does a great job of balancing both romance and adventure. She is able to captivate the reader and completely take them into the world of Echo North. I cannot recommend this book enough! If you are a fan of retellings, make sure to check this one out.

Many thanks to NetGalley for sending me an advanced reader's copy of Echo North in exchange for an honest review.

I really wanted to read Echo North after I found it it was retelling of East of the Sun West of the Moon. (My favorite fairytale of all time; so it also had a lot to live up to.)
This book did not disappoint! I loved this story! I’ve read quite a few retellings of this fairytale, and this one is one of the most original that I’ve had the pleasure of reading. I could feel the cold winds blowing, and picture everything in such vivid detail. The author has such a way with her descriptions, that you feel you are part of the story. The story never lags or becomes boring, you find yourself flipping pages because you want to find out all the secrets just like Echo herself.
If you like fantasy or fairytale stories, consider picking this book. I truly believe you won’t be disappointed. I believe this book will end up being on my list of favorites for 2019 releases.