Name: Echo North
Author: Joanna Ruth Meyer
Publisher: Pushkin Press
Date published: This edition January 2022, first published January 2019
Genre: Fiction, young adult, fantasy, romance, retellings, fairy tales
Pages: 393
Rating: 5/5
Echo Alkaev’s safe and carefully structured world falls apart when her father leaves for the city and mysteriously disappears. Believing he is lost forever, Echo is shocked to find him half-frozen in the winter forest six months later, guarded by a strange talking wolf—the same creature who attacked her as a child. The wolf presents Echo with an ultimatum: if she lives with him for one year, he will ensure her father makes it home safely. But there is more to the wolf than Echo realizes.
In his enchanted house beneath a mountain, each room must be sewn together to keep the home from unraveling, and something new and dark and strange lies behind every door. When centuries-old secrets unfold, Echo discovers a magical library full of books- turned-mirrors, and a young man named Hal who is trapped inside of them. As the year ticks by, the rooms begin to disappear and Echo must solve the mystery of the wolf’s enchantment before her time is up otherwise Echo, the wolf, and Hal will be lost forever.
- From Goodreads.
Echo North was such an enjoyable story to read, I loved how fairy tale inspired it was, how focused it was on storytelling, and how you could see the influences of different fairy tales on it. The way the author built stories into the world and made them important was so clever and felt fascinating to read.
In general the author was very creative and imaginative and it was a joy to read all the descriptions, the world was so interesting and detailed and inventive.
The plot felt very adventurous and I found it hard to put the book down because I was in so much suspense waiting to find out what would happen and how all the mysteries would unravel. There were quite a few surprises at the end that I did not expect and I enjoyed how, even though it was based on well known fairy tales, the author still made the story unique and added twists of her own.
I really adored the romantic elements of the story, how slowly they built up and how beautifully they were written. I was so invested in the characters and them working things out so they could be happy together in the end, they just made my heart ache in a marvellous way.
Echo was also a lovely main character to follow, I loved the journey she went on and could really sympathise with her. I felt I could really understand her emotions and why she made all her decisions, and enjoyed seeing her develop over the course of the novel.
Overall this was a really perfect story for me, a lovely fairy tale adventure with a beautiful love story, and I will absolutely be adding it to my favourite books. I am sure it will be wonderful to reread and I will definitely be happy to read more from this author.
