**3.5-stars**

After their mother's death, 17-year old, Beck, and her 15-year old sister, Riley, are supposed to go live with their Dad and his new partner in Texas. Before they go, Beck has something she needs to do. Concocting a story of staying with a friend and her Grandmother for a bit of a vacation, Beck and Riley are free to take some time and travel where they want. Beck's plan is to go to the town of Backravel, Arizona, to find some answers about her Mom's mysterious final months of life.

Their Mom was an investigative reporter who became obsessed with Backravel. She traveled there frequently. At times it felt like she was choosing Backravel over them. Beck is determined to find out why.

As they arrive in Backravel, it's clear that something is up with this town. The people are strange and treating them even more strangely. They're strongly urged not to take their car to town and there's no cemeteries or churches. The girls settle in to their rented trailer, a place where their Mom had stayed previously, and Beck digs into her investigation. She's keeping her true goals from her sister, so in a way is continuing in the path of her Mom before her.

The town has a charismatic leader, Ricky, who runs a treatment center everyone seems to attend. Beck sets her sights on getting to the bottom of this center, these treatments and Ricky himself. Beck befriends Ricky's daughter, Avery, and gains a lot of new information that way. In the meantime, she also ends up falling for Avery and confiding in her in unexpected ways.

This was an interesting story. I liked the set-up and the vibe of this creepy little town. The concept made me think of a few other things. For example, it reminded me of A History of Wild Places, mostly because of the remote town that felt like a cult, or commune. I did like the mystery of that.

Also, the treatments that were talked about that Ricky performs for the citizens, it made me think of Scientology, like auditing that is performed on members. I was super interested in figuring out what was happening there.

Eventually though, I started to get bored with it and then it went in a direction that I just didn't really care for; the twists. Put another way, while I enjoyed the mystery, I didn't enjoy what the answer ended up being.

However, that is 100% a personal taste issue. Gould's writing is great. The sense of place and, as I mentioned, overall mystery were well done. I did really enjoy The Dead and the Dark by this author, so I think this is just a case of this one not really matching my preferences as far as tropes go.

I did listen to the audiobook and would recommend that as a format choice. The narration is excellent. I felt it fit the tone of the story very well.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Wednesday Books and Macmillan Audio, for providing me with copies to read and review. I'm glad I had the chance to read this one and will definitely be continuing to pick up Gould's work!

Scheduled to post 6/20/23.

Where I loved THE DEAD AND THE DARK so much, WHERE ECHOES DIE is, unfortunately, a lackluster next book that doesn’t have any of the low thrum of horror Gould’s debut did, and next to no resolution.

First, I need to talk about every error that could ever exist about Arizona is present in this book. On their website, Gould does have desert photos, but they’re not where their story is set. If I had to guess they’re farther north, possibly on the border or in Utah. Mainly because southern Arizona doesn’t have those red rocks, nor does it have the red dust that is SO PREVALENT throughout the story.

It bothers me because, well, one, I live here so I’m reading it, literally from page one going no, no no. But also they use the scenery to set the ambiance and the tone of the book. Which is fine, but it’s not accurate. There were ways to make it accurate, but they weren’t taken and here we are. What I mean is they set it in southern Arizona off of highways that exist, but she scrubs them of their reality for the sake of the story. They go through Yuma coming from LA (no, you go through Blythe unless you purposely want to add hundreds of miles to your drive). They didn’t stop going from LA to Backravel (no, your car would have run out of gas before then). They’ve been driving more than three hours since hitting Yuma and are still in the middle of nowhere (no, you’d be well into Phoenix in that time). They haven’t seen any cars during that drive (no, those are major shipping routes and they’re never without tractor trailers or cars within sight at all times). Backravel is a lone town out in the middle of nowhere and hours from anywhere (no, based on her own driving directions, Backravel would be about 15 minutes from Gila Bend, the nearest town, and maybe a half hour or so from Goodyear, the proper edge of Phoenix metro). The characters used the time change to excuse being tired (no, in October there is no time change going from California to Arizona, because Arizona doesn’t recognize daylight savings time, we flop back and forth between MST when daylight savings time is off and PST when it’s on).

What kills me is there are places like this that exist in Arizona where Gould could get this same desolate mood that they were going for without just being wrong about an entire section of the state. I understand that people who don’t live here aren’t going to know this and probably think this is what Arizona looks like everywhere in the state. Like I said, there absolutely are. Just not where Gould set the book.

Since all that was literally from page one, like paragraph three, I had to tuck A LOT back to keep reading. Luckily I liked the voice, although I could have lived without the incessant use of Ellery Birsching’s full name every time it came up. I don’t understand why authors do that. Like, I kind of do, to provide a kind of elevation to the writing, but for me it just got real annoying real fast. I think it got annoying for the author too, because about two thirds of the way in or so they stopped doing that.

I kept reading because I expected something to happen. Anything. Literally anything. Some kind of action. Some kind of tension. Literally. Anything. But nothing happened. I kept waiting for the shoe to drop about the weird time trips people were having and why the town mysteriously “healed” people. And it did eventually, but it was less of a drop and more of a gentle placement on the ground. There’s no explanation of what was actually going on. It was just done and we’re curing people and you’ll be fine. Over in seconds compared to all that build-up, although I can’t really call it build up. There wasn’t much build-up happening.

Beck is clearly someone who needs therapy. I feel bad that she was put in the position of basically being a mother when hers was absent, and it was unfair of Riley to treat her the way she’s been treating her and trying to get her “back to normal.” That was clearly a big part of this book, Beck working through her mother’s rapid decline and death. She did that by trying to figure out what was going on in this town, except she never really figured it out. There’s no explanation for how anything was happening. Just that it was happening because of this lab, and that’s it.

Beck is a very selfish character throughout most of the book, keeping Riley in the dark about everything, leaving her alone after dragging her to this town under false pretenses. I can’t blame Beck for wanting to do something for herself after all this time, but at the same time she did it to the detriment of her younger sister. And when that sister ends up in some nonsense, Beck is just like okay whatever. I guess it’s fine. Which was really shocking. I kept expecting her to fight and she just never did except at the very end, but it was too little too late, and she ended up getting rescued by other people anyway. So she didn’t really solve anything.

There was so much riding on the town doing the work of being creepy enough to hold the story that it fell flat. It wasn’t enough. And the “trust me, it works” attitude that everyone had wasn’t enough to maintain that creepiness, especially when Beck let so much slide. And she really did. She’s very much a rule follower and the extent of her bucking the town’s norms was going to the library and talking to the Desert Woman. She never really risked much of anything of herself. I never felt she was ever really in trouble, and the “villain” was not very intimidating or villainish. I feel like I could have just pushed him over and kept walking and I would have been fine.

Whatever surprises WHERE ECHOES DIE is supposed to have are not surprising. I knew who the Desert Woman was immediately. I had Avery and her father pegged from the beginning. Where there should have been surprises, there wasn’t. Where there should have been resolution, there wasn’t. The more important part of the book was Beck healing and her relationship with Riley healing and putting all that into context. Fine. But don’t market it as a YA horror novel and forget that the horror part needs to follow through.

Since I’m 50/50 on the author now, I’ll give their next book a go when it comes out. I hope it’s better than this one. That it goes back to what THE DEAD AND THE DARK was and has that character growth, but also follows through on the promise of there being horror involved too. I feel like the book I was pitched is not the book I got.

2.5

Unfortunately, I DNF this book. I really love the premise; Two girl’s go to an eerie town, where their mother began to change from a typical mother to a scattered, forgetful person, which ultimately led to her death, Needing to move in with their father, the decided to visit this town with the younger believing they are just there for vacation, but the older secretly investigating the town to figure out what happened to their mother.

I was just unable to get in to this book. The pace was really slow and I did not have any sort of emotional connection to the characters. I kept getting distracted and ultimately gave up reading after 25% of the book.

A sapphic romance in the creepiest of towns! I loved these characters, and I loved how Gould once again describes a place and its feeling so well that I can practically feel the dry desert heat on my skin.

Beck and her sister, Riley, recently lost their mother to cancer. However, the end of Beck's mother's life was punctuated by her many visits to a smalltown called Backravel. Beck could tell there was more going on here than what her mother said and soon took a trip with Riley to see this place for herself. To see what about this town drew her mother away from home so often.

Beck tries to find answers, although everyone in Backravel doesn't seem to know or to remember many details about even their own lives. Most of all, Beck is curious about The Treatment Center and what, exactly, it treats.

I love this author so much! Courtney Gould is so talented when it comes to these dark, unsettling stories that also really hit on some huge emotions such as grief. I definitely recommend this!

Out June 20, 2023!

Thank you, Netgalley and Publisher, for this Arc!

Thank you to Wednesday Books for this eARC! If I could give half stars I’d give this 3.5 stars. I thought this was a really cool concept for a YA thriller and I appreciated how the author explored the heartache and grief that comes from losing a parent. I felt more engaged by the second half of the book and it took me a little while to get fully into the story at the beginning, but I did still enjoy what I read! I also liked reading about the sister dynamic between Beck and Riley, and it’s nice to see more LGBTQ main characters in YA books, especially outside of the romance genre.

A mysterious letter written in her mother’s handwriting finds its way into Beck Birschings hands, but the thing is- her mother is dead. With the haunting sentence 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦 scrawled on the page, Beck is pointed in the direction of the small town of Backravel , and the need for answers pulls her into an unforgettable journey. Riddled with grief, lies and family bonds, Where Echos Die is heartfelt yet dark thriller just waiting for you to uncover its secrets.
—-

“𝘌𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘱𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘢𝘥 𝘢 𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘦𝘹𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘩𝘰𝘯𝘦𝘺 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘣 𝘪𝘧 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘸𝘢𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩.”

This was my first book by Courtney and I must say, I was impressed! I found it a truly original tale, interwoven with memorable characters, intrigue and emotions, and I’m always a sucker for the small town vibes. I enjoyed the writing style and eerie elements of the town. I did find the story dragged a bit in the middle to three quarter section of the book, but picked up again with a great ending. I would recommend this to readers and I’m looking forward to reading another title from the author 🙌.


I give this one ⭐️⭐️⭐️💫

I received an ARC from the publisher via NetGalley and am voluntarily posting a review. All opinions are my own.
I enjoyed Courtney Gould’s debut, so I was excited to try her next book. Like her previous work, it straddles genres, being both a fantastical thriller and a deeply introspective story that muses on the impact of grief.
Gould does a great job of creating the atmosphere of the town of Backravel. From the moment the characters arrive, there’s a sense that something is not quite right, and I loved the subtle way the creep factor built throughout the narrative. It very much comes to life as a character in its own right.
As such, while it was a bit of a slow burn, especially at first, I was soon left guessing as to what was going on with the town, and the “why” and the “how” it was founded. I was not disappointed when things came together.
The characters aren’t necessarily likable, but I could understand them. Beck, as the character we follow in the present, is deeply impacted by her mother’s death, as is her sister Riley, and that in itself is relatable, even if she doesn’t necessarily endear herself to the reader, especially not right away. And getting to learn about what her mother Ellery was up to along with her was cathartic, which I expect was the primary goal of this character’s arc.
This was another enjoyable read from Courtney Gould, and I’d recommend it to anyone looking for books that blend fantasy and thriller with a hard-hitting depiction of the impact of grief.

Thank you for netgalley for providing me with an arc in exchange for an honest review. The following opinions are my own.

I really liked the premise for this book. It's what drew me to initially. And the cover is also beautiful. Unfortunately I was not really prepared for it to be heavily on the science fiction side. Overall though the story telling is interesting.

- 3.5 Stars -

What an absolute mind trip of a book. It was a weird one for sure but I definitely enjoyed myself as I was reading/listening to this one! I really liked the plot line of the town of Backravel. Beck and Riley going to the town that their mother was obsessed with was such a good draw in and made you want to know more. The whole book actually just made you want to know and understand what the heck was going on. It really propelled me through the book (which is why it only took me a day to rip through it).

While I really liked the story, the mystery and the need to figure out what was going on the story was a little slow moving for my liking. The relationship we got to see between Beck and Riley was sweet, but seemed a little toxic with the lying. However, there is a redemption for that, but it still rubbed me the wrong way.

Overall, if you need a young adult book that will hurt your brain (in the best way) this could be the one for you!

🤍 Thank you so much to the publisher @wednesdaybooks & @macmillian.audio & @netgalley for this advanced reader copy!

⚠️TW: death of parent, grief, cancer, child death, chronic illness, death, terminal illness

Rating: 4.5/5
Pub date: June 20

I received an eARC for my honest opinion.

I really enjoyed this YA mystery/thriller a lot. I am so happy that St. Martin Press approved me to read this because this book has moved up to the list of books I will recommend. I really liked how different this book was from other mystery/thrillers that I have read in the past and I don’t know if it was just the plot that made it so for me or if it was the YA aspects of it.

I loved that the plot took place in AZ in a small town in the middle of nowhere, they don’t get a lot of visitors there unless they’re on their way to get help from the town founder/doctor there. However, the biggest mystery there is where are all the people who are supposed to be living there, they don’t use cars, there are no animals, no cemeteries. It’s just an eerie town and Beck is determined to find out why her mother sent her a letter telling her “Come and find me”, after her mothers’ death.

Beck is the MFC in the book and as you are reading this book you will be seeing the world through her eyes. She is a normal teenager who sadly had to grow up too fast to take care of her sick mother and younger sister, but after her death Beck and Riley take a road trip to the town that the letter came from. Beck has her mother’s knack for wanting to find out the truth about things. Just hopeful she will be able to find out the truth and still be alive afterwards.

This book was amazing. I loved the plot, I loved the characters, I loved the twists and turns and all the truth that comes out of the book. I loved how the author handled the topics of grief, panic attacks, LGBT romance. I thought the growth of Beck was done beautifully, I loved how you were there with her going through everything, trying to piece together the story. I would love to go on and on about this story, but I am worried that if I do, I will spoil the greatness of this book, so instead go pick this book up or the audio when it comes out and read it because it was a great read.

I did the eARC and the audio for this book and I thought the narrator did an excellent job. You could tell when it was another character talking to Beck but not only that she knew how to draw you in but kept you interested as well.

I recommend this book to anyone who likes YA mystery/thrillers, twists and turns, and an eerie atmosphere.

I want to thank NetGalley and St. Martin’s Press/Macmillan audio for the opportunity to review this book.

I struggled with this one. Beck Birsching has been struggling since her mother, a brilliant but unreliable investigative reporter, died. On day she receives a mysterious letter from a town called Backravel, AZ that states "Come Find Me." It seems to be from their mom. Beck and her sister, Riley, travel there to discover what their mom was actually working on. There are no graveyards, no churches and no cars. in Backravel Time keeps slipping and Beck wonders what it is about the town that makes everyone seem so lost. Their enigmatic leader, Ricky Carnes, gives the townsfolk "treatments" that seem to help them cope with any ailments, but does it actually help them? His daughter, Avery, is torn between loyalty to her father and her involvement with Beck.
Beck is complex and although not entirely unlikeable, I just couldn't empathize with her. The plot sort of meanders until the denouement, and then it's kind of like, huh. That's it? K.

*Special thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for this e-arc.*

This book was really good. I loved reading about relationship between Beck and her family and unraveling what happened to her mother over the course of the book. The exploration of grief was really well done. The town of Backravel was so interesting and I loved the paranormal elements. I would definitely recommend this book.

This one was a tough read in my opinion. The story was a bit odd and while the characters were interesting, the story itself was hard for me to get into. Even after finishing it, I still don’t really understand what exactly happened in Backravel. This isn’t a book I would recommend.

The trend of me loving everything Courtney Gould writes continues. Not every supernatural thriller gets me, but hers do. Backravel is eery, atmospheric, almost to the point of feeling gothic. As Beck works to unravel the mystery of her mother's relationship with the town. Between the cultish feelings and the strange phenomenon they call "unspooling", there's so much to unpack. But rather than this being a thriller with a traditional culprit, the real villain here is grief. The themes of grief and loss in this book were so beautifully written and reminded me of how I feel at my lowest. Is it truly better to feel nothing rather than risk feeling worse? (No, the answer is no)

It's beautiful, it's queer, and it's killer on audio.

*Thank you to Wednesday Books and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for my honest reviews and to Macmillan Audio for the gifted ALC*

I enjoyed The Dead and the Dark, so I was excited to read this one. And let me tell you, I liked this one even better.

Beck and her sister Riley travel to Backravel, Arizona after the death of their mother. Their mother, Ellery, was a journalist obsessed with the town of Backravel. And though Ellery traveled to the town many times, and wrote hundreds of notes, she never wrote a story. A few months after her mother's death, Beck receives a letter in the mail with a Backravel postmark in her mother's handwriting. In her grief, Beck convinces Riley they should stop and "vacation" in Backravel for two weeks before traveling on to Texas to move in with their father. Riley agrees because she hopes it will give Beck closure. But all Beck wants to do is figure out why her mother was so obsessed with this town.

"She doesn't understand yet that this story isn't a gift, it's a poison."

This story is eerie and mysterious and has so much freakin heart and tender moments. I loved all the symbolism and it reminded me of some other YA horror that I really loved--namely Burden Falls by Kat Ellis and To Break A Covenant by Alison Ames. I especially loved the Author's Note.

"And thank you to anyone reading this now, whether I know you or not. Thank you for trusting me to tell you a story about grief, and it hope it heals as much as it hurts. Goodbye is never easy, but it's only the beginning."

I was exited to read this based on the description. Initially, I was drawn into the story and trying to decipher the mystery of Backravel. I struggled with not liking Beck very much - I felt she was selfish and not at all likeable. I didn’t feel as though the actually mystery of Backravel was well developed - although the overall “mystery” was explained I felt it lacked detail and could have been expanded upon further. I would describe this as more of a story about grief, not a horror or mystery book. Overall this book wasn’t for me, however I would recommend that readers give it a try.

Where Echoes Die is an enthralling and enigmatic mystery that transported me to a dream-like state, much like the hazy heat of the desert. This poignant tale delves into the transformative power of trauma and grief, leaving a lasting impact on readers.

I requested this book because I really enjoyed The Dead and the Dark by Courtney Gould.
We spend a lot of the book getting to know Beck and Riley and learning about why they have traveled to Backravel, Arizona. Their mother has just died from cancer and she visited Backravel many times, but told the girls they could never go. Beck wants to know why their mom went there over and over while Riley doesn't really care and just kind of wants to humor Beck before they go live with their dad in Texas. I knew this was marked as horror, so I just kind of kept waiting for the horror to show up. It crept in slowly and by the time I realized what was going on, I was really invested.
The residents of middle of nowhere Backravel seem to have no real memory of anything that happened before they moved there "a few years ago." They all moved there for treatments at the mysterious treatment facility run by Ricky Carns. These treatments succeeded where everything else failed. As Beck manages to dig deeper and deeper and find more clues, she ends up discovering more about Backravel than she bargained for.
I liked Beck, though she didn't have perfect relationships with anyone. Her relationship with Riley was strained, it felt more like Riley was taking care of Beck even though she's the younger sister. They were both processing the death of their mother in different ways. Neither of them had a good relationship with their father who left when they were young. I loved how different Beck and Riley were, Beck is very withdrawn and has panic attacks, while Riley can make friends with anyone, anywhere in a day. While in Backravel, the girls meet Avery who is Ricky's daughter. Beck and Avery hit it off, but I personally didn't feel a lot of chemistry between them. Avery had an interesting backstory though.
While the horror element did manage to hook me, there were times where my jaw dropped and there were times I was a little confused. The ending was very fast paced and exciting.
If you are looking for an atmospheric, not too scary horror book, give this one a try!

Beck Birsching has had a hard life. Her parents divorced over her journalist mother's obsession with a story she was investing, and then her mother's illness leaves Beck in charge of herself, her mother, and her younger sister, Riley. In her search for answers about the story that consumed her mother, Beck takes Riley to Backravel, Arizona, the town their mother was investigating, to try to understand what it was that drove her so hard, and why she returned so many times over the course of years.

At first glance, Backravel is a seems like a normal small town, but that first impression quickly vanishes as Beck looks around; there are no churches or other religious centers, no cemetery, and no one drives - the few cars that are in evidence are carefully covered against the desert dust. The day after their arrival, the host of their AirBnB has forgotten their existence, although his wife and son remember. When the sisters set off to explore the town, they are offered a tour, which covers the minor attractions common to any small town, and highlights the odd mixture of defunct military installations with new construction dotted through it, but, notably, does not include the gleaming, new-looking treatment center on the mesa overlooking the town. Something is clearly off in Backravel, and Beck is determined to find out what, using her mother's notes to guide her.

This is an interesting novel, a mystery about secret government experiments and the aftermath that was abandoned in the desert, hidden in plain sight. It's also a novel about family, and the lengths people will go to keep their family together, as well as the lengths people will go to to understand what drives those they love to actions that appear inexplicable.

I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Where Echoes Die is a YA sapphic novel about a town that seems to stand still. It’s also about grief and how it changes you and the world around you. I think we’ve all experienced pain that made you hold on to the past.

It’s so hard to explain this book. I would say it’s similar to something like Stranger Things. It’s eerie and perfect if you love spooky towns.

I will read anything that Courney Gould writes. I absolutely loved her debut The Dead and the Dark and this one didn’t disappoint.
I recommend this if mysteries are your jam.