steph1rothwell's review
5.0
When I was contacted by the author asking me if I would like to read her book I was delighted. It was the just the type of book that I enjoy reading as a break from crime fiction. I’ve always liked the type of novel that covers generations of the same family where all their secrets are revealed. Some of the people in it are in more than one period and you see the way that life has turned out for them.
The author demonstrates very well how war has a devastating effect on an area, which is more obvious when the community is small. In the beginning it is noticed how many families have had their lives torn apart from more than one war. In the novel it is WW1, WW2 and the Iraq war in the 1990s.
The Flint family are a strange one. Brittle, unapproachable and very unhappy. The novel focuses on the women: Rachel, Elsie, Ruth, Phoebe and Leah. Leah is one of the more elusive characters but it is her actions which have the biggest effect on most of the others. Daniel, Joseph and Jack also have a role but it is the women whose story is told. Their family ties are revealed throughout the novel but much of what happens isn’t revealed until near the end. Attitudes towards the war also play a part. How differing views can unsettle relationships and cause bad feeling in families and in a small community.
But just as destructive as the wars is jealousy and it is this what affects the different generations. It is hard to think that a feeling can cause misery and loneliness for a 100 years, but I have a feeling that it could be common.
My favourite period was WW1, where Rachel gets her chance to find love, but my favourite character was Elsie, and I wished she could have had a happy life away from the Flints.
Virginia Moffatt is an author who I would definitely read again and I would like to thank her for sending me her book to review.
The author demonstrates very well how war has a devastating effect on an area, which is more obvious when the community is small. In the beginning it is noticed how many families have had their lives torn apart from more than one war. In the novel it is WW1, WW2 and the Iraq war in the 1990s.
The Flint family are a strange one. Brittle, unapproachable and very unhappy. The novel focuses on the women: Rachel, Elsie, Ruth, Phoebe and Leah. Leah is one of the more elusive characters but it is her actions which have the biggest effect on most of the others. Daniel, Joseph and Jack also have a role but it is the women whose story is told. Their family ties are revealed throughout the novel but much of what happens isn’t revealed until near the end. Attitudes towards the war also play a part. How differing views can unsettle relationships and cause bad feeling in families and in a small community.
But just as destructive as the wars is jealousy and it is this what affects the different generations. It is hard to think that a feeling can cause misery and loneliness for a 100 years, but I have a feeling that it could be common.
My favourite period was WW1, where Rachel gets her chance to find love, but my favourite character was Elsie, and I wished she could have had a happy life away from the Flints.
Virginia Moffatt is an author who I would definitely read again and I would like to thank her for sending me her book to review.
ladyonequestion's review
4.0
Read on Pigeonhole. An enjoyable historical novel weaving different generations of a family connected by a house. This was well written and I liked the way that the author weaved the different storylines togetger, but I wasn't completely convinced by the paranormal elements which seemed to be tacked on at various moments as I thought they were a bit superfluous.
shelfofunread's review
4.0
Following four generations of the same family, Echo Hall is an eerie and atmospheric novel of love, secrets, betrayal and regret.
When Ruth Flint arrives at Echo Hall, she is struck by the atmosphere of gloom and malice that hangs over certain parts of the building. Newly married and pregnant, Ruth already doubts whether she’s made the right decisions, and the oppressive atmosphere of the house, combined with the reluctance of both Adam and his grandfather Jack to talk about its history, do little to allay her fears. When Ruth stumbles upon a stash of photographs and documents in a locked upstairs room, she unknowingly begins to unravel the tangled web of secrets surrounding the Flint family – but in doing so, she must be careful not to become ensnared in Echo Hall’s web herself.
Spanning four generations, this is a novel of sprawling proportions but, at its heart, Echo Hall is a novel about family, and about the ties that bind us together whether we wish it or not. It’s also about the legacy that can be passed from one generation to the next – legacies of guilt, loss, and betrayal that can influence future generations in ways that the originators of those feelings could never comprehend. This makes Echo Hall a very evocative novel and I really felt for the various women whose stories make up the legacy of the Flint family.
Ruth and Elsie were probably my favourite characters. I admired Ruth for her spirit, and for her determination to try and move beyond the legacies of Echo Hall’s past. Elsie is a woman before her time – spirited and good-natured, I found her story to be unbearably tragic.
Other characters were less sympathetic – I found it hard to like Leah and Veronica, although this may be owing to the fact that, as the story is told backwards, I already knew what kind of people they would become from reading Ruth and Elsie’s narrative first – and because I liked Elsie so much, I was already predispossed to dislike them both! That said, though I couldn’t bring myself to like Leah, I found it really interesting to read her section and discover what it was that made her into the bitter woman she became in Elsie’s narrative.
This backwards narrative means Echo Hall really takes the reader onto a journey with its characters, who really are the driving force behind the plot. Although not a slow book to read by any means – I finished it in a couple of days – Echo Hall is about the people that make up the place, and the things that drive them to make the choices that they do – for good or ill – rather than dramatic uncoverings of long-buried skeletons in the Flint family closet. Personally I found this to be fascinating, although some readers may be disappointed that the supernatural elements hinted at in the blurb, and in some early chapters, don’t materialise into a significant part of the story.
That said, whilst Echo Hall may not be filled with things that go bump in the night, the characters in the novel are all haunted in one way or another. Whether by bitterness, regret, or guilt, Echo Hall is a place unable to move beyond the love and heartbreak of its past.
If I had one criticism of Echo Hall it is that sometimes I wanted to spend more time with the characters than the novel allowed. With four generations of the Flint family to cover, there is a lot happening in the novel and it occassionally felt as if certain aspects of each story were left unexplored, or that promising strands (such as the ghostly apparitions seen by Ruth) were left dangling rather than being fully resolved. I could also have done without the framing narrative given by Phoebe – Ruth’s daughter – as I didn’t feel it added to the narrative in any way.
These are, however, very minor niggles in an otherwise very enjoyable and richly realised family saga. For a debut, Echo Hall has an impressive level of depth and complexity, and tells an atmospheric story of the lives that make up one family across the course of the twentieth century. Fans of Kate Morton and Rachel Hore should certainly check Echo Hall out, as should anyone looking for an engaging tale about the legacies of the past.
NB: This review first appeared on my blog https://theshelfofunreadbooks.wordpress.com/ as part of the blog tour for Echo Hall. My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review.
When Ruth Flint arrives at Echo Hall, she is struck by the atmosphere of gloom and malice that hangs over certain parts of the building. Newly married and pregnant, Ruth already doubts whether she’s made the right decisions, and the oppressive atmosphere of the house, combined with the reluctance of both Adam and his grandfather Jack to talk about its history, do little to allay her fears. When Ruth stumbles upon a stash of photographs and documents in a locked upstairs room, she unknowingly begins to unravel the tangled web of secrets surrounding the Flint family – but in doing so, she must be careful not to become ensnared in Echo Hall’s web herself.
Spanning four generations, this is a novel of sprawling proportions but, at its heart, Echo Hall is a novel about family, and about the ties that bind us together whether we wish it or not. It’s also about the legacy that can be passed from one generation to the next – legacies of guilt, loss, and betrayal that can influence future generations in ways that the originators of those feelings could never comprehend. This makes Echo Hall a very evocative novel and I really felt for the various women whose stories make up the legacy of the Flint family.
Ruth and Elsie were probably my favourite characters. I admired Ruth for her spirit, and for her determination to try and move beyond the legacies of Echo Hall’s past. Elsie is a woman before her time – spirited and good-natured, I found her story to be unbearably tragic.
Other characters were less sympathetic – I found it hard to like Leah and Veronica, although this may be owing to the fact that, as the story is told backwards, I already knew what kind of people they would become from reading Ruth and Elsie’s narrative first – and because I liked Elsie so much, I was already predispossed to dislike them both! That said, though I couldn’t bring myself to like Leah, I found it really interesting to read her section and discover what it was that made her into the bitter woman she became in Elsie’s narrative.
This backwards narrative means Echo Hall really takes the reader onto a journey with its characters, who really are the driving force behind the plot. Although not a slow book to read by any means – I finished it in a couple of days – Echo Hall is about the people that make up the place, and the things that drive them to make the choices that they do – for good or ill – rather than dramatic uncoverings of long-buried skeletons in the Flint family closet. Personally I found this to be fascinating, although some readers may be disappointed that the supernatural elements hinted at in the blurb, and in some early chapters, don’t materialise into a significant part of the story.
That said, whilst Echo Hall may not be filled with things that go bump in the night, the characters in the novel are all haunted in one way or another. Whether by bitterness, regret, or guilt, Echo Hall is a place unable to move beyond the love and heartbreak of its past.
If I had one criticism of Echo Hall it is that sometimes I wanted to spend more time with the characters than the novel allowed. With four generations of the Flint family to cover, there is a lot happening in the novel and it occassionally felt as if certain aspects of each story were left unexplored, or that promising strands (such as the ghostly apparitions seen by Ruth) were left dangling rather than being fully resolved. I could also have done without the framing narrative given by Phoebe – Ruth’s daughter – as I didn’t feel it added to the narrative in any way.
These are, however, very minor niggles in an otherwise very enjoyable and richly realised family saga. For a debut, Echo Hall has an impressive level of depth and complexity, and tells an atmospheric story of the lives that make up one family across the course of the twentieth century. Fans of Kate Morton and Rachel Hore should certainly check Echo Hall out, as should anyone looking for an engaging tale about the legacies of the past.
NB: This review first appeared on my blog https://theshelfofunreadbooks.wordpress.com/ as part of the blog tour for Echo Hall. My thanks go to the publisher for providing a copy of the book in return for an honest and unbiased review.
fictionophile's review
4.0
2014 - The story opens with a young woman, Phoebe Flint, visiting a stately home on the English/Welsh border which is open to the public. Though she has paid to enter the building, this is, in fact, the house where she was born. A house which has witnessed much unhappiness, and many family secrets.
Echo Hall is located within walking distance of Arthur's Stone. This infamous neolithic rock plays a part in the lives of all the women who reside in the gloomy old manor house.
Then, we travel back in time to Phoebe's mother's story, telling of how she came to Echo Hall as a pregnant newlywed shortly before her husband Adam Flint was called up to fight in the Gulf War. The remote and chilly Echo Hall does not welcome her and she misses her work. Her husband's grandfather, Jack seem to be hiding something...
The Flint family fortune was founded on a slate quarry. A codicil was written into the deeds of the house that sons can only inherit the quarry if they are married and live in Echo Hall with their wives and children.
Later we learn of Phoebe's grandparents story during World War II. Then even farther back, we learn of Phoebe's great-grandparents story during the years of World War I.
MY THOUGHTS
Echo Hall is aptly named for two reasons. 1) when standing near Arthur's Stone, the valley acts as a natural echo chamber, and 2) the house reverberates with the echoes of the memories of previous residents.
I read a digital copy of the book and was wishing that it had come with a genealogical chart. It would be interesting to see the Flint family tree and helpful with keeping the timelines straight in your mind. Perhaps there is one included in the paper book, I'm not sure...
The depiction of how war affects the Flint family over the generations was very moving. Three generations - three wars...
This is a meandering family saga filled with loves, losses, betrayals, infidelities, childbirth, death, and, overriding it all, WAR. A few of the characters were a part of the Quaker faith and were very anti-war. Their views plays an integral part of the story. Also predominant was a feud between two sisters. A conflict so serious that it affected future generations.
Always a sucker for a old house teeming with history, I couldn't help but enjoy "Echo Hall". The inhabitants over the years suffered and loved in equal measure. Their story was overwhelmingly tragic, yet their lives were both fascinating and intriguing.
I would recommend this novel to those readers who enjoy historical fiction and inter-generational family sagas. A well rendered debut!
I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Unbound via NetGalley.
Echo Hall is located within walking distance of Arthur's Stone. This infamous neolithic rock plays a part in the lives of all the women who reside in the gloomy old manor house.
Then, we travel back in time to Phoebe's mother's story, telling of how she came to Echo Hall as a pregnant newlywed shortly before her husband Adam Flint was called up to fight in the Gulf War. The remote and chilly Echo Hall does not welcome her and she misses her work. Her husband's grandfather, Jack seem to be hiding something...
The Flint family fortune was founded on a slate quarry. A codicil was written into the deeds of the house that sons can only inherit the quarry if they are married and live in Echo Hall with their wives and children.
Later we learn of Phoebe's grandparents story during World War II. Then even farther back, we learn of Phoebe's great-grandparents story during the years of World War I.
MY THOUGHTS
Echo Hall is aptly named for two reasons. 1) when standing near Arthur's Stone, the valley acts as a natural echo chamber, and 2) the house reverberates with the echoes of the memories of previous residents.
I read a digital copy of the book and was wishing that it had come with a genealogical chart. It would be interesting to see the Flint family tree and helpful with keeping the timelines straight in your mind. Perhaps there is one included in the paper book, I'm not sure...
The depiction of how war affects the Flint family over the generations was very moving. Three generations - three wars...
This is a meandering family saga filled with loves, losses, betrayals, infidelities, childbirth, death, and, overriding it all, WAR. A few of the characters were a part of the Quaker faith and were very anti-war. Their views plays an integral part of the story. Also predominant was a feud between two sisters. A conflict so serious that it affected future generations.
Always a sucker for a old house teeming with history, I couldn't help but enjoy "Echo Hall". The inhabitants over the years suffered and loved in equal measure. Their story was overwhelmingly tragic, yet their lives were both fascinating and intriguing.
I would recommend this novel to those readers who enjoy historical fiction and inter-generational family sagas. A well rendered debut!
I received a complimentary digital copy of this novel from Unbound via NetGalley.
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