Night Echoes (Signet Eclipse) [Paperback]

Holly Lisle (Author)

Book Description

Series: Signet Eclipse | Publication Date: April 3, 2007

Artist Emma Beck returns to her southern hometown to discover the truth about her secret family history. With the help of Mike Ruhl, the contractor she's falling in love with, Emma finds that her legacy is more chilling and unexpected than she ever dreamed. Especially when she starts hearing the whispers late at night.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Romantic suspense twines neatly with the paranormal—and without a single vamp or were-creature—in Lisle's latest, a chilling haunted house mystery that pits a sensible couple against the supernatural. Following the death of her adoptive father, artist Emma Beck leaves Wisconsin and buys a "falling-down, money-pit, creepy-ass" Civil War-era house in Benina, S.C., the hometown of her deceased biological mother. When Emma meets local handyman Mike Ruhl, the attraction between them is instant and strangely evocative, almost as if they already know each other—intimately. Soon, strange noises, unprovoked feelings of terror, a phantom cat and her own overactive libido have Emma spooked, a feeling that only deepens when she tries looking up two women who knew her mother and finds instead two fresh corpses. Lisle keeps pages turning with steamy sex scenes, disturbing revelations and a good old-fashioned ghost story, all building to a white-knuckle conclusion; it's more than enough to please romantic suspense fans and should make a satisfying treat for anyone burned out on bloodsuckers. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Searching for her birth mother, Emma Beck has uncovered her mother's name and discovered her own birthplace, Benina, South Carolina. And when she comes upon an abandoned farmhouse, she knows it is hers. An artist, Emma, mysteriously enough, has been painting aspects of this house for years. She purchases the house and hires a contractor, Mike Ruhl, to make it livable. The house seems to welcome her, and when Mike and Emma meet, not only do they feel an immediate attraction, but it is almost as though they recognize each other and have a shared intimate history. This unnerves them both. As Lisle's suspenseful tale progresses, Emma begins to hear and feel things that indicate several chilling facts: her house is haunted, she and Mike may be the incarnation of previous occupants, and their lives may be in danger. A fascinating story with just the right amount of suspense and romance, Lisle's romantic suspense novel thrills and chills. Maria Hatton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Signet (April 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451220943
• ISBN-13: 978-0451220943
• Product Dimensions: 6.3 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,039,999 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Holly Lisle has been writing fiction professionally since 1991, when she sold FIRE IN THE MIST, the novel that won the Compton Crook Award for best first novel. She has to date published more than thirty novels and several comprehensive writing courses. She is currently working on the second book in her Cadence Drake series.

Holly had an ideal childhood for a writer...which is to say, it was filled with foreign countries and exotic terrains, alien cultures, new languages, the occasional earthquake, flood, or civil war, and one story about a bear, which follows:

"So. Back when I was ten years old, my father and I had finished hunting ducks for our dinner and were walking across the tundra in Alaska toward the spot on the river where we'd tied our boat. We had a couple miles to go by boat to get back to the Moravian Children's Home, where we lived.

"My father was carrying the big bag of decoys and the shotgun; I was carrying the small bag of ducks.

"It was getting dark, we could hear the thud, thud, thud of the generator across the tundra, and suddenly he stopped, pointed down to a pie-pan sized indentation in the tundra that was rapidly filling with water, and said, in a calm and steady voice, "That's a bear footprint. From the size of it, it's a grizzly. The fact that the track is filling with water right now means the bear's still around."

"Which got my attention, but not as much as what he said next.


" 'I don't have the gun with me that will kill a bear,' he told me. 'I just have the one that will make him angry. So if we see the bear, I'm going to shoot him so he'll attack me. I want you to run to the river, follow it to the boat, get the boat back home, and tell everyone what happened.'

"The rest of our walk was very quiet. He was, I'm sure, listening for the bear. I was doing my damnedest to make sure that I remembered where the boat was, how to get to it, how to start the pull-cord engine, and how to drive it back home, because I did not want to let him down.

"We were not eaten by a bear that night...but neither is that walk back from our hunt for supper a part of my life I'll ever forget.

"I keep that story in mind as I write. If what I'm putting on paper isn't at least as memorable as having a grizzly stalking my father and me across the tundra while I was carrying a bag of delicious-smelling ducks, it doesn't make my cut."

Cheerfully,
Holly Lisle

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fast-paced haunting thriller, June 1, 2007

By 

R. Kyle (USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Night Echoes (Signet Eclipse) (Paperback)

Artist Emma Beck discovered a folder after her father died. In it was a record from a detective who was detailing the circumstances of Emma's adoption and the death of her birth mother.

Up to that moment, Emma had not realized she'd been adopted.

When she visited her birthplace, Emma found an old derelict house that both said 'home' to her and nearly frightened her to death. She'd been painting bits of this house in her art throughout her career. Then she discovers that Mike, her contractor, had also figured prominently in her illustrations.

As the story unfolds, Emma hears strange sounds in the house, finds her paints messed with while she's been sleeping, etc.

All in all, "Night Echoes" is a fast-paced, hard to put down thriller that could well defend a place with mainline thriller novels. It's also a paranormal that doesn't count on lycanthropy, vampires, or any similar character to keep it fresh.

I regretted when Holly Lisle left writing fantasy for the romance novel field, yet, I have read almost every romance she's written and enjoyed them. This comes from someone who doesn't particularly care for romance novels. Lisle so seamlessly blends the romance in with the storyline that it's a natural part of the flow.

Lisle has a way of creating sympathetic characters that pull you in because you care about their lives and want to see them survive--if not succeed and be happy. Emma and Mike, and to a lesser extent, Cara, are more than just constructs.

And the house itself became a being in this story. Lisle's scene setting really takes you there even if you've never seen a Southern Gothic style home before.

I'd definitely consider her as someone to study if you are interested in learning how to pull in and hook a reader with subtle foreshadowing. Lisle's a pro and she's a pleasure to read no matter what she writes.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasing Ghost Story, May 30, 2007

By 

Mel Odom (Moore, OK USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Night Echoes (Signet Eclipse) (Paperback)

Holly Lisle started out her writing career with fantasy novels. However, lately she's turned her hand to paranormal suspense novels and become quite successful and quite well-known at them. She also manages her personal web site [....]

Her first novel paranormal romance, MIDNIGHT RAIN and her last, I'LL SEE YOU, had more violence inherent in the plot than the current book does, but her fourth book, NIGHT ECHOES, is more a southern gothic and ghost story. In all of her books, Lisle manages to present interesting characters in challenging situations, all with an economy of language that keeps readers turning pages. Lisle has such an easy touch with prose that it's hard not to just keep reading way past bedtime. The pages seem almost to turn themselves.

In NIGHT ECHOES, commercial artist Emma Beck buys an old Civil War-era house in South Carolina that she has ties to she has no explanation why. When she sees the house, she realizes that she's dreamed about it and painted it several times in her artwork. The author works this story with a slow burn, layering in character and building tension at a steady pace.

Emma was adopted by her parents. Before he died, her father gave her the name of her birth mother. Her father had hired a private detective to track the information down in case Emma ever needed to know. It was that search for the background on her mother and why she was given up for adoption that led Emma house that she buys almost on impulse.

The story picks up after Emma has been living in the house for a few days and is still moving in. She's also met Mike Ruhl, the contractor who did minor repairs on her house before she moved in. There are immediate sparks between Emma and Mike that leave no doubts about who the romance will concentrate on.

Lisle presents her character and a very human fashion and gives her a detailed background that allows the reader to get to know her very well. But it isn't long before Emma becomes embroiled in trying to find out more about her birth mother. The story she gets almost breaks her heart. Her mother was sixteen when she gave birth to Emma. The father betrayed her and left her alone and pregnant and at the mercy of her cruel father.

However this isn't the only story that Emma is told. The prevailing story is that the baby died, which means that she can't be that baby. But everything she finds leads her to believe that she is, and she feels that she is.

The book doesn't really offer anything new to the experienced gothic/ghost story reader. Those who have read in the genre before will easily keep pace with Lisle's twists and turns. Still, this is a well-crafted novel and the characters are pleasure to explore and journey with. The first three books Lisle wrote offered action and surprises. NIGHT ECHOES jogs along at a comfortable pace and delivers a satisfying ending that doesn't really come as a shock or surprise. While the novel may not build on the momentum of the previous three, it offers a diversion into a different style of writing and an old style ghost story that most of today's readers haven't seen in some time.

Readers who want something to take to the beach and vege out with will enjoy this novel a lot. And Holly Lisle's growing fan base will enjoy yet another winner.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Haunting tale of Love and Murder, April 16, 2007

By 

Elaine C McTyer "avid reader" (Dawson, GA USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Night Echoes (Signet Eclipse) (Paperback)

Artist Emma Beck was adopted as a baby. She is now alone since both her adopted parents are dead. She travels to the town she was born in and intends to search for her birth mother, she knows her name. But almost as soon as she arrives she sees an old house and her heart and mind say she has found her home. She quickyly buys the old house and hires someone to start renovating it as she returns home to pack for the move to the old pre-civil war farmhouse in Benina, SC.

Arriving with a U-haul and her old truck she is again welcomed by the old house. All of the work has been done and she intends to restore the old place. There is something warm and homey about the house but also mysterious. She finds the familiarity comforting.

Mike Ruhl, the carpenter, worked on the house but felt very uncomfortable in it. Now when he comes to check for a leak he meets Emma and with her presence the old place feels like home to him and Emma feels like the one woman he has been searching for forever.

Mike and Emma are pulled into the mysteries of the old house, mysterious leaks, footsteps, and a cat only Emma can see. Then Emma discovers her birth mother is dead, she was only 16 when she had Emma and died in a hospital where she was being treated for mental problems.

As death follows Emma to Benina, it seems she and Mike are caught up in two different mysteries. One of which is over 100 yrs old. The discovery of a civil war saber and other items allow more memories and revelations.

I loved the dark moody ambiance in this book, it will keep your attention and the two stories are fasinating, they lead to a final confrontation. I enjoyed it and hated to put it down. Do not miss it.