For some reason, I could not get into this story. It was very difficult to connect with the main character, and the dialogue felt a bit strange at times. It just wasn't my cup of tea.

The blurb made it seem interesting and i had very much high hopes when i went into it.
But the story and characters were just so and so.

An interesting sci-fi novel with a strong female protagonist - I always love a strong lady in the forefront of any book!
It was a pretty good book, with an interesting main character, who goes on a journey to discover who she really is and how she fits in to the world around her. Well written and easy to enjoy, I would recommend this book.

In the end, I did end up not downloading and reading this book due to time constraints. Thanks for the opportunity.

Here's another book I knew was going to be right up my alley before I even started it. Following a young woman in her 20's named Dani, it shows her world, one torn apart by war, as an alien military has ravaged Earth for the last few decades. Though the Echoes, an alien race who had integrated themselves into the human population for hundreds of years, were living just fine before their military counterparts began trying to extinguish the human race, everyone opposing the Wardens are being torn apart. It's all anyone can do to just barely survive.

Living with her uncle Jace, Dani's life as a scavenger has been hard. Always watching her back, she's risking her life every day just trying to go out and steal food. It's a little help that her boyfriend is part of the military defending their territory from the Wardens, but they're not innocent either. They scoop up anyone they can to recruit them to fight for them, including other scavengers like Dani. Whether they're an Echo or not. And even though the Wardens are Echo Military, they do horrible experiments to their own people and are genocidal against the humans, which is a lot worse than just being forced into the Military. No one can win this war, it seems like.

That is, until Dani comes along. After losing her life, she regenerates as a young ten year old girl and must grow up all over again. Usually Echoes keep there memories with them when they regenerate, but Dani's different. Her and Jace relocate to a small town and start fresh there. And Dani's determined to change the way the world is, because she's not the only one sick of the war.

This book was amazing, and like I said, I knew from reading the description that I would love it immediately. It's action packed, heart and gut wrenching, and the story isn't one that's used up and repeated. As you might know if you have followed my blog for a while, or even if you just read my blog name, I love books about aliens and/or the apocalypse. Everything about them intrigues me, and this book was no exception. I read it in just under a day, and I'm very thankful that I have the second book in the trilogy ready to go. I can't wait to start reading it, and I have high hopes for it because of how much I loved this one.

If you're into books about aliens living among humans, and also a war against those same aliens on a war torn Earth, then this is the book for you. And if you don't, I highly suggest giving this one a chance. I just loved it so much that I want everyone I know to check it out. It's not so gory that it makes you shy away from it, but it's still action packed and interesting. The characters are easy to imagine, and somehow they're very realistic although their world is nothing like our own. I just can't get enough. I hope we get to see more of Brody, Oliver, Dani, Mary, Hattie, Miles and everyone else I love in the next book, and I'm going to start it right after this.

(Radioactivebookreviews.wordpress.com)

I am a dystopian novels junkie so this book is exactly the type that I gravitate toward when I am reading fiction. The plot to this one was really engaging and had me hooked! The pacing was a bit slow at times, but the second half of the book went really fast. The biggest issue I had with the book, which was a huge con, is that the characters are so uneducated that they don't know how to speak any words besides curse words. It made them hard to relate to and I had to resort to skimming at some parents since it was so bad. The book would have been awesome if their speech could just have had some variety so they seemed somewhat intelligent. Additionally, the main character, Dani, acted more like a young teenager than a 25 year old. That isn't terribly detrimental to the story, however, it was annoying and made her character seem whiny and immature at times. I preferred the supporting characters in the story much more, but their could have been some more character development. Because they tended just to say one word sentences that consisted of curses, the characters weren't terribly developed. Overall, I thought it was an interesting book, but it definitely has adult content and is not YA appropriate.

Great read had me hooked from the start I realy liked the characters they pulled me in.
I would highly recommend this book.
I received this book from netgallery inexchange for a honest review.

Disclaimer: I received this ebook from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book: Echoes of War

Author: Cheryl Campbell

Book Series: Echoes Trilogy

Rating: 5/5

Diversity: LGBT moments and characters!

Publication Date: September 10, 2019

Genre: Sci-Fi

Recommended Age: 17+ (violence, language, gore, slight sexual content)

Publisher: SparkPress

Pages: 400

Amazon Link

Synopsis: Decades of war started by a genocidal faction of aliens threatens the existence of any human or alien resisting their rule on Earth. Dani survives by scavenging enough supplies to live another day while avoiding the local military and human-hunting Wardens. But then she learns that she is part of the nearly immortal alien race of Echoes—not the human she’s always thought herself to be—and suddenly nothing in her life seems certain.

Following her discovery of her alien roots, Dani risks her well-being to save a boy from becoming a slave—a move that only serves to make her already-tenuous existence on the fringes of society in Maine even more unstable, and which forces her to revisit events and people from past lives she can’t remember. Dani believes the only way to defeat the Wardens and end their dominance is to unite the Commonwealth’s military and civilians, and she becomes resolved to play her part in this battle. Her attempts to change the bleak future facing the humans and Echoes living on Earth suffering under the Wardens will lead her to clash with a tyrant determined to kill her and all humankind—a confrontation that even her near-immortal heritage may not be able to help her survive.

Review: I thought this was an amazing read! The detail and world building in this novel was out of the solar system! There’s a fine line between just the right amount of detail and too much detail, one which Stephen King himself falls over at all the time, but this book managed to succeed it! The characters were also compelling and well developed. The pacing was also well done and I’m so happy that a romance isn’t the focal point in this.

The only issue I really had with the book is that you are thrown straight into the novel and it can really throw you off for a few chapters. Hang in there, it gets better.

Verdict: Worth the read.

The world is good. The banter is not too gratuitous in snark. Dani is not human she felt it as she made mistakes as was not gratuitously praised.

I like a good dystopian story, add in a sci-fi slant about aliens and you've got me! I enjoyed this first novel in the trilogy, and look forward to reading the next two installments.

Dani is an Echo - not that she knows about that at the start. The Wardens are also echos, and trying to eliminate all humans left on Earth so that they can establish a new home for themselves. As you can imagine, the humans aren't best pleased about it, and will do anything they can to prevent it. Dani is a skilled scavenger and gets caught up in an attack, she gets killed, and regenerates. That's when the real story starts.

Reviews by the Wicked Reads Review Team

Erica – ☆☆☆☆
Spoiler-Free Review

Cheryl Campbell is a new-to-me author

Echoes of War is the debut in the Echoes Trilogy.

I'm always looking for something a bit different that melds several genres together, a novel that I won't forget as soon as I start another. Dystopian meets Science Fiction.

Echoes of War was rich in detail, painting a fully envisioned world, without being laden with too much description. Earth has been overrun with aliens in this dystopian tale, Dani is one of the human survivors, doing all she can to stay that way. I was able to get a good grasp on the world building, without it being spoon-fed to me, nor was it lacking explanation.

Starting off with a bang, Echoes of War is action-packed and exciting, spanning a long period of time. Where I had difficulty is how the time seemed to jump forward, the characters felt different.

While the world building and war-torn environment were stellar, this was at the expense of the character development and relationship connections. There wasn't much growth for the characters, actions/reactions not jiving up to their maturing ages, sounding more young adult than adult, whereas young children sounded mature and logical in comparison.

I thoroughly enjoyed Echoes of War and look forward to continuing the trilogy. Recommended to those looking for something different, who are more interested in action and world building vs character building.

Thank you Netgalley for sending me this arc. I will be reviewing this book in the near future with an honest rating and review.

First of all, thank you #Netgalley and #Sparkpress for the advanced copy of this book! I loved it! ! I IMMEDIATELY knew I would connect with the main character, (even though I’m 53), Dani has all the spunk and tenacity needed to make me route for her the entire book, and that’s no easy feat!!! Every day I looked forward to picking up this unique story of survival in a world taken over by an alien invasion! I will anxiously await the second book as this will be a trilogy!!! #CherylCampbell#SparkPress

Really 3.5 for me. My best friend absolutely loved this one but I failed to connect with it 100%.
Extremely strong beginning..action packed, was totally loving it.
The time jump really messed me. There was just too much too fast without any explanation.
I needed to understand why she couldn’t remember when all the other Echoes could...
I didn’t understand the animosity between the different civilian sects.
I’m sorry it just didn’t do it for me.

Cheryl Campbell, a children’s writer, has written a YA dystopian novel that begins hundreds of years after an alien race invaded earth and lived amongst us before rising up and completely destroying cities and their residents. Millions of humans were killed and the rest are being hunted by the aliens as the book opens.

The surviving humans, among them Dani a twenty-something woman, are starving and being hunted. Dani is a scavenger able to find enough food for herself and her friend Jace. When some unknown thing changes and the aliens step up their search for the remaining humans and seem bent on killing them all, Dani must stop being a loner. When she learns she’s not a human after all, her world is rocked, but she carries on. She stops being annoyingly immature and steps up to help the hunted to survive.

Campbell has done a good job introducing the dystopian world as Dani knows it, but fails to tell us why the aliens wanted America and why they are trying eliminate the humans. Her descriptions of the war-torn area in which Dani and Jace live give the reader a real feel for the kind of life they are leading.

The action begins right on page one and continues for a number of chapters when the author changes direction and begins to describe Dani’s previous lives. I personally think it would have been a much stronger book had Campbell not changed the focus, but rather continue to have the characters fighting not only for survival, but for their lives as well.

If you like dystopian novels with interesting main characters, a plotline with potential, and the first book in a proposed series, you will undoubtedly enjoy this book.

My thanks to Spark Press and NetGalley for an eARC.

Alien Invasion story where the aliens have been living among us for awhile. I really enjoyed it but couldn't figure out why the echoes could regen but did not heal sickness or injuries very well.

Firstly, i really loved the idea of this, it had lots of potential and I found the Echoes super intriguing. The echoes are an almost immortal alien specie which can only die from beheading or mid regeneration. A war was started and the story follows an Echo called Dani who survives from going out to scavenge supplies.

I wasn't too fond of the writing to start off with, the word dead was written a few times in the first few pages, minor issue but a little irritating to me. Also there were unnecessary uses of curse words. I have no problem with cursing as i curse a lot myself but sometimes it just seemed like it wasnt needed.

I appreciated the world building but i felt like there could have been more with character development. The main character in particular, i found super frustrating.

I would like to see how the story continues and hope for more development.

Thank you!

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
4 STARS

I thoroughly love a good post-apocalyptic/dystopian and I also love good sci-fi. Plus you know your girl loves a fierce female protagonist who is flawed and relatable. So when I saw this one on NetGalley, I knew I wanted to give it a try! I have had a harder time personally finding a good sci-fi lately, so I went into this hoping to find something engaging and unique. Boy did I find it! Echoes of War did not disappoint!

I loved the fact that Dani was far from perfect. She makes mistakes, sometimes even really big ones. This made her character so much more believable and complex. I enjoyed her gradual growth as a character from the first chapter, right up to the very end, the changes brought about by not only the events that unfold but the friendships she builds over the years. I also truly enjoyed all of her different "lives" that we were shown.

I will confess that because you are literally THROWN into the action, I found the first few chapters a bit confusing and it was difficult to really tell what was going on. Once I got my head around that beginning though, I found Echoes of War a difficult novel to put down.

Cheryl Campbell does an outstanding job of creating a story that instantly pulls you into the rapid-fire action while at the same time builds a new world within it. The world-building was phenomenal as she uses current day geography and landmarks told from a future date. This quickly allowed me as the reader to relate to the story and the challenges faced by the characters. Mix it all with alien occupied earth, the battle for human survival and you find yourself in twists and turns that leave you wanting more of the world as soon as you put the book down.

The romances and the characters were complex, and while I love a good romance, I was glad to see that this was not the focus of the novel. I also had a teeny-tiny bit of a hard time with Gavin's love for Dani. It did feel a bit sudden and out of the blue, kind of insta-love, with not enough scenes to establish or set up the relationship for us the reader. I did enjoy their relationship as the story went on though and we saw more interaction with them.

Overall, Echoes of War is an exciting, action-packed, sci-fi thriller that Cheryl Campbell has created. It is unique enough to stand out amongst the genre, and it's just a solid post-apocalyptic tale. I really enjoyed Echoes of War, and am excited to see what Cheryl Campbell comes up with in the sequel.

Content:
Adult language and violence throughout. (R)
Mild sexual references (PG-13)

Title: Echoes of War
Author: Cheryl Campbell
Genre: Dystopian, YA
Rating: 3.0 out of 5

Dani is a Brigand: living on the fringes of society and scavenging to survive. The Wardens, an alien race, came to Earth centuries ago and lived disguised as humans until they were discovered. Now they’ve destroyed much of humanity—and are trying to destroy the rest. Then Dani’s brother reveals she’s an Echo—one of the near-immortal alien race who reset back to a younger age when they die, but not militant like the Wardens.

Soon Dani is trying to convince the other Brigands they need to work with the military so they can defeat the Wardens. But Dani will have to learn from her mistakes if she’s to help them succeed.

Okay…it was really hard for me to write this summary, which tells me a bit about this book’s issues: it’s a little too undefined to be completely coherent. Frankly, Dani was kind of childish, and while this is partially explained due to her nature, she never seems to learn from her mistakes and is just hell-bent on doing things her way—no matter the repercussions to other people. I did not find her very likable. And this book felt more like an unpolished manuscript to me: sometimes there are no explanations/motivations for characters’ actions—I can’t relate to people if I don’t have the slightest idea why they’re doing things. And there are several places lacking transitions, where time passes—four months, in one case—with zero transition at all, which felt very abrupt and threw me out of the story.

Cheryl Campbell lives in Maine when she’s not being a nomad. Echoes of war is her newest novel.

(Galley courtesy of SparkPress via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.)

Unfortunately, I can’t give this book more than two stars because I didn’t finish it. I made it to 66%.

It has a very strong beginning, with an intriguing world build and action scenes. The characters for the first quarter of the novel seem to be building into a good cast – we have Dani, the scavenger who has an aptitude for fighting, and we have Miles, a cop with a conscience.

It’s a very realistic setting and I enjoyed the concept of the Echoes very much. It’s very concise in terms of prose, which works well for the action scenes, but does not work for building emotional resonance with the characters.

Unfortunately, once the (very exciting) opening action scene dissolves, the characters, tension, and writing go with it.

We jump through time so quickly (and not just once, but several times) and as such we never see the characters interact outside of important plot-building scenes. Suddenly someone is in love with someone else, but we’ve never had a hint of it before. The couple hasn’t exchanged two sentences of dialogue before this reveal, and their decision to delay their relationship didn’t make sense to me. An obvious plot twist arrives with a convenient detail that will likely lead to a love triangle (maybe not – this is just conjecture on my part).
There is a child who speaks like an adult and an adult who acts like a teenager. The latter is exacerbated because the men in the novel are constantly speaking for or determining the choices of the female protagonist, which irritated me. Possibly this is resolved or dealt with somehow, but, again, I didn’t finish it.

Likewise, there no discussion or internal musing on the implications (psychologically) of being an Echo. I really enjoyed the Echo concept but it was sadly used more as a plot device than a thought experiment about immortality or other existential concepts.

The villain’s motivations were too far-reaching to be truly menacing and the attempt to humanize him by giving him a family didn’t really work. Tied to this, there are no stakes in this novel because it seems like everyone’s life is fine. Other than the battle at the start, people seem to be living normally (albeit in a post-apocalyptic atmosphere). No one appears to be suffering under the Wardens other than a few instances here and there. Perhaps because I don’t live in that country, I had trouble with the references to cities. I only know Bangor is in Maine because of Stephen King.

Likewise, the differences between the two civilian sets wasn’t explained very well. I didn’t understand the animosity between the two groups or why they were disparate.

Overall, I didn’t think the novel was that bad, I just got bored. Others might be very into it, but it wasn't my style.