I recently had the opportunity to read Echoes, by Alice Reeds, in exchange for an honest review. I enjoyed it quite a bit. It is different than a lot of books out there, but that doesn’t make it any less readable.
Our main characters, Fiona and Miles, are going on an internship in Berlin. They never have liked each other, and Fiona, at least, is not very excited at the prospect of working with him. That’s where everything goes awry. They find themselves stranded on a desert island with each other. Alone. Or do they?
The story goes back and forth between two timelines. In one, Fiona and Miles are stranded on the deserted island. In the other, the two are running for their lives in Berlin. While I was reading it, I started to ask myself, how do these two timelines intersect? After reading this book, I actually still don’t know. The answer is still mysterious.
Over the course of the story (in both timelines) Fiona and Miles start to actually *gasp* like each other. As they get to know each other, they discover that they’re both not quite what the other person expected. I found that Miles was the more reasonable person here, although I can see where Fiona was coming from. I won’t go over the details of why they originally developed an animosity towards each other in the first place, as that is explained in the book.
The world that Fiona and Miles are visiting is well set up. During the Berlin scenes, I can tell that Ms. Reeds has actually been to Berlin, or at least went through the city virtually using google street view. I have recently been working on a story where the characters are going through locations that I am familiar with, and the details that Ms. Reeds gives in her Berlin scenes are just as knowledgeable as the ones that I am writing about places that I am familiar with.
There is also some German in this book. I happen to speak German, so I really like that aspect of the story, but if you don’t speak German, the surrounding context explains what it means. Fiona doesn’t speak German either. There is also one line of Russian in this story (I also speak some Russian). Again, Fiona doesn’t speak Russian, and the story explains what it means.
Despite this being a really strange story, I liked it a lot. I couldn’t put it down. The book went with me everywhere, all day long, and only put it down when I had to do those pesky life things. I read the first chapter before I went to bed one night, and finished it the next evening.
The ending makes me think that there should be another story in this series, although it doesn’t look like there is one planned, at least according to Goodreads. It ends in something of cliffhanger. If it does end in a small cliffhanger, then it seems fairly appropriate for this book. As you read Echoes, you discover that almost nothing is as it appears (except for, probably, Fiona and Miles).
If you enjoy interesting books with puzzles to solve, you will probably like Echoes. It would be nice if there ends up being a sequel, as the book is well set up for one, but if there is not, it fits into the style of the rest of the book.
