House of Echoes [Paperback]

Barbara Erskine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 11, 1996

When Joss, an adopted child, discovers that her real mother has left the beautiful family home, Belheddon Hall, to her, she is thrilled, until she discovers that the Hall is haunted by a presence which will not tolerate husbands or sons living in the house. When Joss Grant inherits the beautiful old house on the East Anglian coast, it is a dream come true. Eager to begin a new life there with her husband and son, she is also impatient to find out about her newly discovered family who lived there for generations. But Joss begins to hears echoing voices and senses an invisible presence, watching her from the shadows. Are they spirits from the past? Or is it her imagination? As she learns, with mounting horror, of the house's tragic history, her fears intensify, for she realizes that both her family and her own sanity are at the mercy of a violent and powerful energy which seems beyond anyone's control. Despite the threat to her own husband and son, Joss is unable to break free, and, in a last desperate attempt, conjures up the presence to deal with 'it' once and for all.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Supernatural chills and romantic sighs are Erskine's (Midnight Is a Lonely Place) stock in trade, but this outing finds her deficient in both categories. She concludes her latest romance-cum-spook story with a book review praising a first novel by protagonist Jocelyn "Joss" Grant for "leaving the reader clinging to the edge of his chair," but that's wishful thinking as far as this novel is concerned. Adopted as a baby, Joss tracks down her biological mother and learns she has inherited an ancient house in Essex. Ignoring the villagers' superstitious warnings, she moves into Belheddon Hall with her husband, Luke, and her two-year-old son, Tom. Unfortunately, the ensuing strange phenomena?roses left on pillows, and ghostly giggles?frighten Joss more than the reader. Then bruises appear on Tom's arms. Joss suspects ghosts, but Luke suspects Joss. Determined to discover the house's secrets, Joss researches her blighted family tree only to find that no male heir has ever inherited Belheddon. The problem, it turns out, stretches back to the 15th century, when a powerful witch, who lived in the house, cast a spell on King Edward IV that caused him to fall in love with her daughter, Katherine. Over 500 years later, the spell still binds an armor-clad King Edward, who spends eternity making love to all of Katherine's descendants (including Joss), while the bitter Katherine menaces the men of Belheddon. Just when Joss is on the verge of losing her sanity, a village psychic conveniently breaks the ancient curse with surprising ease, forcing an ending that is as illogical as it is happy. Literary Guild/Doubleday Book Club featured alternate.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Faced with financial ruin, Jocelyn and Luke Grant at first view the surprise inheritance of an Essex manor house from Joss' birth mother as a godsend. But who really sent the centuries-old house where boyish voices echo, drifts of icy rose petals appear and then vanish, and a chilling shadow threatens the safety of Luke and his toddler son? When Joss' second child is born, also a boy, it becomes apparent that only the males in the Grant household are threatened, and suspicion falls on Joss. To clear her name and save her family, she must confront and defeat a powerful, ancient presence. Without being overly graphic or ghoulish, Erskine's third novel of the supernatural provides a sensual, shivery thrill ride through a classic English country house. Roberta Johnson --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 528 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins Publishers (November 11, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0006479278
• ISBN-13: 978-0006479277
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.1 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (31 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,679,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can feel the chills go down your spine..., November 28, 2005

By 

Lilly Flora "by Lilo Drandoff" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

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This review is from: House of Echoes (Paperback)

Something terrible once happened at Belheddon hall.

It happened long ago, and the people caught up in the horrific events are long dead.

But the ghosts, the echoes, linger on.

Joss Grant was adopted as a baby, and she never had much of a desire to learn about her birth parents, until her own son was born. She finally tracks down a name, and a last known address of her birth mother. She is surprised when that address takes her to a beautiful old English manor house in the tiny village of Belheddon, and at first, delighted with the ghost stories that come with it. The villagers even believe that the devil lives there himself. The initial disappointment that her birth mother is dead is gotten over quickly.

As it happens, her husband Luke's engineering firm is bankrupted when his partner runs off with the cash, and they are forced to sell their home to pay off creditors. But all isn't lost; Joss finds out through an old parish priest, that her mother left her a letter with a lawyer, to be read only if she comes to find her seven years after her death. The letter leaves Belheddon hall to Joss.

At first she's overjoyed. The house is perfect. Luke can start a car repair business out of the driveway, she can write her novel in peace, and her adopted sister can watch her son Tom.

But things start to happen immediately. Tom complains of seeing a "tin man" in the night, and Joss finds white roses which no one else sees. Soon she discovers she's pregnant, but that isn't the reason she feels so odd.

When her son Ned is born, Joss and her sister Lyn start to notice bruises on the children. They disappear in the night and turn up in the attic. Lyn thinks Joss is hurting them, but Joss has just realized that never has a boy born in Belheddon lived to inherit the house...

This creepy ghost story was great. I loved it! It confirmed my previous decision to buy all of Barbara Erskine's books. True, the resolution at the end was a little wishy washy, and the extremely malevolent ghost seemed to give up haunting the house pretty easily, but this book is still amazing. The author is fantastic at suspense, and I was scared to read this while alone in the house. My absoulte only compaint with the book was the guy that Luke hired to help him fix classic cars, Jimbo, kept saying "I Reckon" which I think only people in cowboy movies say.

Five stars.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars AN EERIE, SENSUAL, AND ATMOSPHERIC HAUNTED HOUSE STORY, February 19, 2001

By 

Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: House of Echoes (Paperback)

This is a beautifully written novel about a haunted manor in the English countryside. It is the story of a young, married woman, Jocelyn Grant, who inherits that country manor, Belheddon Hall, from her biological mother whom she never knew, as she had put her up for adoption a few months after her birth. Jocelyn, her husband, Luke, and her young son, Tom, happily move into the house, despite having heard warnings from the local townspeople that there is something quite odd about the house.

That happiness, however, soon turns to dread, as Jocelyn and her family begin to hear the laughter of young boys echoing throughout the house, as well as see physical manifestations of a knight in armour. Moreover, the scent of roses, at times, permeates the house, and someone or something keeps leaving white roses strewn throughout Belheddon Hall.

Jocelyn also begins to hear a ghostly voice calling out to someone named Katherine and finds herself being sensuously touched by someone other than her husband; someone whom she does not see, until it is too late. Her son, Tom, often sees an apparition, whom he refers to as the "tin man", and wakes up with bruises all over his body. Her fear is compounded when she realizes that no male heir has ever lived to inherit Belheddon Hall, and that the house has come down to her by strict, matrilineal descent.

Understanding the implications of her realization, and by now having two young sons about which to worry, she fights against the disbelief of her husband to combat the evil that lies at the root of the strange and frightening happenings at the Hall. How this is accomplished, and the story brought to its chilling climax, is what keeps the reader riveted to the very end. The book is absolutely gripping.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Chilling, Spine tingling., February 23, 2004

By 

glenda taylor (Mold.Flintshire.North Wales.UK.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: House of Echoes (Hardcover)

I am a great fan of Barbara Erskine, this book was the best to date. When Luke and Joss Grant face financial problems due to Luke losing his business and their home, they cant believe their luck when Joss inherits a beautiful old house from a mother she never knew. Along with Tom their small son they move into Belheddon Hall. When Joss becomes pregnant with their second child they thought that their happiness was is now complete.

How wrong they were.Joss starts hearing childrens voices and white roses start to appear on her pillow.After the birth of her second son Ned, things really start to happen.Tom starts having terrible nightmares and mysterious bruises appear on his
arms and legs. When Ned disappears and is finally found in one of the attic rooms Luke begins to think Joss is responsible. As the secrets of the old house unfold Joss realises that her sons lives are in danger. She enlists the help of a previous colleague David and together they try and fight the ghosts that threaten them.

From the first page to the very last this book was compelling . The combination of terror and historic events made it very hard to put down. Thank you Barbara Erskine,for a wonderful read.