Thomas Olde Heuvelt is one of contemporary horror’s best authors. His writing is sharp, confident in its exquisitely ominous builds and terrifying pay-offs. Hex was one of my favorite reads of 2016, so I very much looked forward to Echo which I imagined would deliver a similarly memorable chilling experience. At it did, for the most part. The prologue that opens this book is one of the most effectively creepy scenes I’ve ever read, setting the stage for a gloriously atypical horror novel. Following a mysterious mountain climbing accident that kills his friend and lands him in a hospital with a major facial disfigurement, Nick Grevers is haunted by an experience he can’t fully recall. Helping him through his troubled recovery is his boyfriend, Sam Avery, who is battling some inner demons of his own. The narrative shifts back and forth between both men’s points of view as the mystery surrounding the incident, and Nick’s horrific injuries, unfurls, eventually landing them both in a small Swiss village whose superstitious inhabitants don’t take kindly to strangers. It’s a wonderfully spooky set-up that surprises with more than a few highly imaginative scares before dovetailing into a (literally and figuratively) chilling climax. But it takes a while to get there. And that, in my opinion, is this book’s biggest drawback: it’s too long. While Nick’s diary entries charting his descent into darkness are gripping , Sam’s chapters are less engaging, resulting in a somewhat uneven story progression. And once they arrive in Switzerland, the suspenseful slow-burn sputters and stalls out before eventually regaining that lost momentum and barreling to a satisfying climax.

Somehow this book that is only 416 pages seemed to go on forever. I don't mean that in the way you might imagine. Far from being too long or boring, it just seemed to exert control over me, perhaps a little bit of Maudit mystery and magic comes with every book? The first chapter was one of the most gripping openings ever, and I was dying to figure out how this would fit into the story. There was so much to uncover as Echo progressed, and I fear that my words will be inadequate to describe how this book just captivated, scared, and confounded me at times.
Nick and Sam are blessed with good looks, money, and a relationship that works well for both. With different interests, their friends think that they won't last, but they are more like salt and pepper, good together. Nick is an adrenaline junkie, and nothing makes him as happy as his mountain hikes. His hobby scares Sam, who is always afraid Nick, won't come home. But Nick never lets Sam down, until he and his climbing partner Augustin pick the wrong mountain to conquer. No one talks about the Maudit in the Swiss Alps, but those that have had experiences with it, know that it is not a climb that you will walk away from unscathed.
This climb goes wrong. Augustin is presumed dead, and Nick barely survived. His face, his beautiful face is disfigured, but more than wounds hide behind his bandages. Something returned with Nick, something that desperately wants him to unwrap his face and let it out.
This book, this book was phenomenal! We spend time in the present as well as climbing the Maudit with Nick and learn about demons from Sam's past. I was sucked in from that very first chapter, loved and was horrified by what would happen next, and did I hope it would end differently. Yes. But realistically, I knew this tale would not have a happily ever after ending. So, sue me! I loved these characters, but in my heart, I knew that the Maudit would conquer them. All the stars to this book that pushed the boundaries of time for me.

That opening is one of the creepiest I have read for a long time. Pair that with survivor horror and you have a pretty eerie story. Unfortunately I didn’t feel the book held my attention as it progressed though and I can’t quite put my finger on why.

Thomas writes in an incredibly unique way and as such this isn’t a typical survival horror story. The character development is strong. Those who enjoy survival horror and complex stories are likely to enjoy this one.

Thank you Tor Nightfire for the opportunity to read this book in advance.

Echo grabs you by the throat from the first chapter. What a prologue! This book contains some of the most vivid imagery and terrifying scenes I've ever read. The story has a grim, heavy atmosphere that will have you peering into dark corners while not knowing exactly what you fear. The growing sense of dread and unease was nearly breath stealing at times.

This is a complex story I found a little hard to follow at times with 2 narrative voices and the story largely told thru manuscript and journal entries.

The story pacing did feel uneven to me, but it served to keep me unbalanced and quickly turning the pages while anxiously waiting for the next rotation from slow burn to edge-of-my-seat anxiety. Though there were moments during the book that the pacing frustrated me, once I finished reading it made more sense as a deliberate narrative choice on the author's part.

Overall, I really enjoyed Echo, in spite of not fully understanding everything that happened. This book was such a haunting, eerie, dark tale about love, loss and sacrifice. Sam, Nick and the Maudit will linger in my thoughts long after finishing this book.

I was more than delighted that Tor Nightfire approved my request to read Thomas Olde Heuvelt's newest "ECHO," whose premise had me incredibly intrigued. Especially after I had finished reading his first novel, "HEX," which was precisely the type of witch story I was craving. But unfortunately, I am here to be the bearer of bad news concerning my opinions about "Echo." "Echo" is a haunting/possessed story centered around a mountain after Nick, a travel journalist and mountain climber, wakes up from a coma to find that his climbing buddy, Augustin, is missing and presumed dead. His boyfriend Sam, traumatized when Nick comes back severely scarred and has a haunting presence about him that the darkness starts to unveil itself.
As you can see that it was highly promising, but I had an issue with how the story seemed to drone on, and I found myself bored. Maybe something was lost in translation since Thomas Olde Heuvelt is from the Netherlands, or perhaps this will be better suited for me as an audiobook. I just didn't jive with it, but I will be giving it a second shot when an audiobook is released to see if maybe I was the problem. Thank you so much, Tor Nightfire, for allowing me to read an ARC of "ECHO." Happy Reading! x

I need to have a few words with this author. I need to kindly ask him to stop scaring me to absolute death, but then I need to beg him to continue scaring me to death for as long as we both shall live.

I’m serious. When I read his earlier book, Hex, it was days after Hurricane Ida ravaged my hometown. I decided that the perfect solution to no electricity was to begin reading Hex, while the only light for miles around was the soft glow of my Kindle. Big mistake! Y’all, I swear that a certain woman from that book was haunting me from the shadowy corners. I still spontaneously shout “EEK!” when I think about it.

With Echo, I once again made a terrible decision to start reading it late at night. Gah! Immediately, I was traumatized. There’d be no bathroom breaks for me that night. Nope! In the prologue, we meet a lady who had to pee. It didn’t work out so well for her, did it? It did not. So, my first piece of advice to you if you’re thinking of reading this is to prepare for the long haul. Don’t get up. It just isn’t safe.

My favorite thing about this author is the way he hooks his readers. The man can write an opening like no other! My second piece of advice is to clear your schedule before you begin one of his books. Trust me, you won’t move a muscle until you’re finished with the story he’s telling you. It’s physically impossible to tear yourself away.

My third piece of advice is to go in blind. Don’t spoil your experience with a synopsis. Just dive in. Give him permission to send chills from the tip-top of your head, down your spine, straight through your legs and into your toes. Just go with the creepy flow of things.

Finally, my last nugget of wisdom is to strenuously suggest that you get your hands on this one immediately. Don’t think about it. Don’t weigh your options. Find a store and throw some money at it. It’s worth it. You’ll not want to miss the panic-inducing tension and the nightmare-worthy imagery. The visuals in the book with haunt me for all eternity. Enjoy, if you dare.

What if mountain climbing but haunted? Sign me up please! This story is at its best when it's all about Nick Grevers' epistolary report to his boyfriend Sam of his ill-fated trip climbing trip on the Maudit, which left his climbing partner dead and his face mutilated; Heuvelt writes good alpinism and I loved every bit of Nick and Augustin's misadventures on the scary as hell cursed-Swiss-peak on which the locals refuse to search for missing climbers because, well, it's probably just better to pretend the whole mountain doesn't exist, okay? But my interest waned whenever I was hearing things from Sam's side; while by the end of the book I understood where Heuvelt was going with his backstory, it only took me away from the Morose, and Grimentz ghosts, and his sections were also stylistically annoying, which may have been a function of the translation - startling tense changes from line to line, such as " ... My left wheel ricocheted off a bump and shot to the left. I take my foot off the gas ...", Sam's weird propensity to refer to himself as I but also you, switching it up from paragraph to paragraph, and many, many instances of him saying 'hadda' and 'woulda' and 'cuz' all grated on my nerves because I knew I could have been reading instead about what happened to Julia (yikes!) or holes in the ice that look like eyes where the water inside freezes and thaws, freezes and thaws. But on the whole, this was a good scary romp that could've used some tightening up that gives me one more reason to never, ever take up mountain climbing.

I had a little trouble getting through this one unfortunately. Still it was mildly entertaining. Just not exactly what I hoped for. I'm not sure if it is the story or the style preventing me from liking it more. This is my first by the author so maybe I wasn't ready for the style?

I got the feeling the author tried too hard on the language and it became something seeming more sophisticated than it actually is. This caused my pacing to be all over the place.

It did have it's creepy moments, and I appreciated those. I liked the different voices it's told in, with Sam and Nick, but overall there was just something missing that made me like it more. It's still an interesting overall read, just not really special or different.

This book had the perfect amount of horror, suspense and grotesque. Though it felt a little slow at times it was definitely a page turner for me. Thomas has a way with bringing his words to life. Reading this book made me feel like I was in the story alongside these well written and developed characters. When I requested an ARC of this book I had mentioned that the cover, title, and book sounded interesting. That was absolutely true reading the first few pages/ chapter. Definitely looking forward to buying a physical copy of this book and recommending to others. Thank you so much for this early copy!

So, I had an up and down experience with the last book I read by Heuvelt. That book, Hex, started off well and then just descended into confusion for me. And then I hated how some things were portrayed. I was hesitant with this book, but thought it was a very solid horror book that reminded me a lot of several other works by Lovecraft, James, Jackson, and other horror aficionados. Once you get into the book though, you realize that was bey design. Even though this book is horror, in the end, I found it to be a love story at it's core. There are not a lot of gross out terrible moments, but the feeling of dread creeps through the book, goes away, and creeps back again. The main reason why I gave this 4 stars and not 5 stars is that parts of the book just get bogged down and are hard to push through. The flow was up and down (probably due to the different narrators and style). 

"Echo" follows Sam Avery and Nick Grevers. The two men are in a happy relationship, with just one sticking point. Sam is not happy with Nick and his constant need to go mountain climbing. He's afraid that something out there may happen to him. His fears are proven right though when he's informed that Nick has been hurt climbing and his climbing partner, Augustin has gone missing while they were climbing Maudit in the Swiss Alps. 

Sam becomes afraid of how Nick is going to look and react after he and Nick's family realize that his face will never be the same. But Sam realizes that it's not just Nick's face that has changed, something seems to have gotten a hold of him.

The book then switches back and forth between Sam's (manuscript), Nick's emails/letters to Sam and then Nick's journal (I guess?) as the two men work out what is happening to Nick and why. 

I loved Sam's backstory and the love between him and his sister. And honestly, Sam's love of Nick too. Readers will catch on pretty quickly what is going on with Nick, but Sam refuses to believe it even when evidence is at one point left behind for him. I also love the parts of the book that delved into why Nick loved the outdoors so much, and what about the mountains grabbed him. I love hiking and being outdoors does make you think and feel primitive things. 

But it also makes you feel close to something. I don't know how to describe it. Hiking always centers me and that's why I hate it when I can't go at least once a week. 

The writing was very well done I thought. Each of the chapters includes an excerpt from a horror themed book which plays upon what readers are going to read next. We get "The Turn of the Screw", "The Great God Pan," and others. As I said earlier, the flow though was the main problem I had with this one. Sometimes certain chapters felt too full of information. And other times it felt like the chapter just flew by too fast and left me with more questions. 

The setting of the book for the most part is the Swiss Alps. And apparently I was incorrect in thinking that place is like Christmas year round. There be some darkness in those mountains. I loved a lot of the callbacks to myths and other things in this one.

The ending I thought was true to the book, but also once again it reminds you. At its heart, this book is a love story.

Thank you so much Tor for an early copy! ECHO opens with the absolutely scariest prologue I’ve ever read! The rest of the book unspools with slow building dread. Another fantastic horror story from Olde Heuvelt!

Content warning: falling, disfiguration, vomiting, body horror, violence against birds, suicide (both discussed and depicted)

Sam Avery’s boyfriend, Nick Grevers, is an avid mountaineer who goes into Alps one season and an accident occurs. Nick’s climbing partner Augustin perishes while Nick returns with supposed amnesia and a face completely bandaged up. In an effort to give his boyfriend closure and healing, Sam races against time and nature while supernatural madness unfolds. While Nick might have left the mountain behind, it certainly back with him.

Echo taps into several sources of primordial dread, like losing the one we love in ways less permanent than death, tall men who are slightly too tall, and sleep deprivation demons.

This book reads like a multi-layered sandwich of mystery and homage. I really enjoyed the tone of Sam’s narration, especially juxtaposed with the more straight-forward account of Nick’s final climb with Augustin. The love the two men hold for each other permeates the page as the horrors try to do everything in their power to get in their way. Much how climbing seems to be an intensely personal endeavor, this seems to be Sam’s approach to saving his boyfriend from the mountain which should have claimed him.

The way Heuvelt makes a mountain the villain worked really for me. It’s a blend of atmospheric horror and folklore that really sucks the reader in, with incredible contrast to the facts, figures, and photo evidence that come with every day life. There are moments where reality feels wonky not just for the characters, but the readers as well. The use of direct address during key scenes helps maintain grounding, but wow, does Heuvelt master the feeling of unease and disconnection from the world around.

My favorite thing about this entire work is how the ending loops perfectly back to that chilling banger of an opening. I can’t say anything else, not that too much of it would make sense out of context, but for people who like clever narrative structure and mystery are in for a treat.

Echo is a very strange, complicated book, and I loved it. It’s the story of a mountain climber, Nick, and his boyfriend Sam — and what happens after Nick is discovered gravely injured after a mysterious, unplanned climb. Sam begins to worry Nick has brought something back with him from the mountain.

This novel just worked so well for me. The horror of the mountain climbing scenes was incredibly immersive. Echo captured the isolation, danger, and beauty of the mountains so well.

It’s a creepy book, opening with one of the scariest prologues I’ve read in a while. Then it slows down a bit: it’s thoughtful and dreamlike in places, sometimes closer to magic realism than horror. It’s a long book, and it feels long, but in a way that worked for me. I felt the growing dread pull me in and completely immerse me in the story and characters.

I loved the integration of mythology, Sam’s history and childhood memories, and his current pop culture knowledge and casual way of narrating — it created such a rich vocabulary for the character. At the start of the book, Sam’s voice annoyed me, and it took me a while to really catch the rhythm and understand the character. By the end I thought it was perfect. Nick as a second narrator is the perfect contrast.

Heuvelt’s writing and Moshe Gilula’s translation are confident and authentic, and there’s so much complexity to the writing that I want to read this one again soon.

I read this author’s other book Hex and I liked it. This was was just as enjoyable for me. At certain points I was on the edge of my seat! It was creepy, atmospheric, thrilling!

Nick Grevers, a mountaineer and travel journalist wakes from a coma to learn his best friend Augustin is missing and presumed dead. Nick suffered serious injuries himself and claims to suffer from amnesia. However, he remembers everything.

Nick and his friend went on an epic expedition to Maudit a lesser known peak in the Swiss Alps. The trip starts of fine until they enter the valley. They begin to feel like something is watching them. Stalking them.

Nick was lucky he made it back from that trip alive. However, there is a change within himself that puts everyone he loves in terrible danger.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this arc.

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

I jumped at the chance to read this. Folk horror, haunted godlike mountains, a tragic climbing expedition... Ultimately, however, I'm halfway through, I put it down a couple of weeks ago, and I don't think I'm going to pick it back up.

I can totally see why some people love this book; it just wasn't the right fit for me. The timeline was too chaotic. Some scenes were abrupt, and others felt like they belonged in a different book entirely. Those latter ones may have payoff later, but I don't have the patience for it unfortunately. The characters were multidimensional but I just didn't relate to them, and I realized I wasn't really rooting for them.

That aside, there's some great atmosphere and imagery here, and I can't say it's not a good story.

Maybe it's the translation, maybe it's just not the book for me. I couldn't rate it 1 star because there were moments it absolutely captivated me. I'm pretty frustrated with myself for not finishing it, because part of me is curious about where it's going and how it'll end, but I just don't want to take that journey.

I really wanted to like this book, and on some levels I did. For me the basics were all there, winter landscape, mountains, seclusion, and a dark supernatural presence. But the farther along I got the more bogged down I became with endless dialogue with characters that were shallow, spoiled, and self absorbed. The only thing that kept me going was the mystery surrounding the maudit. One of the main characters, Sam, also used slang that just didn't fit, "cuz", "haddo do", "youda go nuts", and "remembuh". Sam was the only character that used this terminology and it was tiresome. Bottom line I got to the point I didn't care who might succumb, I just wanted it to end. Contains - some graphic horror, profanity, gay relationship

This was an atmospheric and incredibly creepy read!

Nick and his friend went mountain climbing and only he came back… completely disfigured. Even after undergoing surgeries to reconstruct, he will never look the same. Something happened on that mountain. His best friend is dead and Nick is acting weird.

His boyfriend Sam is at a crossroads. He loves Nick, but he is having trouble with the circumstances surrounding his recovery. It doesn’t help that Nick is acting hella creepy at the most unexpected times. It’s almost like something came back with him, and it’s not good.

What did Nick and his friend get into on that mountain? Nick is pretending he doesn’t remember anything, but he knows what happened and something is very wrong.

Echo has this perfect level of horror. There is always something keeping you on the edge. There was this level of increasing intensity that sneaks up on you.

Things I loved:
1.) The atmospheric horror and increasing dread. If I wasn’t terrified of mountains, I would be now.
2.) Nick’s diary entries.
3.) The folk horror/mythology.
4.) Images I had to read over and over because they were SO. GOOD.

Things I did not love, but are definitely subjective:
1.) It took me a long time to get my bearings. Maybe my own fault, but I couldn’t get settled in the shifting times and perspectives.
2.) I hated Sam’s slang. This may be a translation issue, not a writing issue.
3.) This was only 416 pages, but felt much longer.

And then the ending…beautiful. Took this from a solid 3 star to an easy 4.

Many, many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for a digital ARC.

Do you enjoy adventure horror? I’ve read many climbing horror stories through the years and I think I maybe found my new favourite.

“Everyone carries a curse. We can help others only once we’ve gotten rid of ours.”

Nick Grevers awakes from his coma a different person. A terrible climbing accident has left him horribly disfigured, his face bound in bandages, the damage rendering him speechless. His climbing partner Augustin is missing and presumed dead.

Unable to tell what happened the doctors and townsfolk spin a story of what happened. But Nick is haunted by the actual events of the climb. While part of him was physically left on that mountain something evil came down with him.

A possession fused to his wounds. A manifestation that assaults anyone who sees his unbound face.

Nick knows the only way to expel the spirit within is to go back to The Maudit, the mysterious summit that never wanted him to leave, before everyone lies dead in his wake.

“A good horror story didn’t end with death but with something worse.”

This book has a little bit of everything. Family tension and relationship drama. Body horror and possession. TOH is always so good at layering the grotesque within domesticity.

I will warn you that this book is dense and slow moving. So I encourage you to be patient as the story unfolds.

Echo

[Blurb goes here]

This books blasts off like a rocket. The first few chapters making it hard to put down, even though what we first encounter as 'foes', are just a variation of well known antagonists from a long running BBC sci-fi TV show. No matter, as I said, the first few chapters are gold.

Then, sadly, we get to the 'filler' part of the book, when we're bombarded by too much unnecessary information. Some of it skippable, if I'm being honest. It takes a lot of time for the book to get moving again, giving hints here and there as to what is happening. By the time you reach the first half, you already know where the story is heading to.

I love a good long read, as long as it keeps the plot going forward. I have to say that, even though I enjoyed to no end the way the book is written, at times, I was frustrated by the constant pit stops the story takes, in order to make it longer.

Thank you for the free copy!