Tough characters, tough storyline. The main character Max continues his story after death.
This is an interesting way for us to discover all of the hidden information about the characters, but it didn't work for me.
The story was well written and hard hitting. It showed how tough life can be in the UK and Australia.
I was challenged by all of the Australianisms but enjoyed the story overall.
Thank you to the author for opening my eyes about this type of life .
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This was my first Evie Wyld book and it did not disappoint. Elements of this book felt personal (I'm an Australian, living in London with partner) and the conversations, rituals of their relationship resonated with me deeply. Evie can WRITE - her voice is distinct and felt different to other authors I've been reading. She is a master at timelines and I really enjoyed this aspect of the book, albeit it being confusing at the beginning. I wasn't expecting it to end the way it did but those last 50 pages were incredibly powerful and I thought it was brilliantly done. I'm told her other works are great so this will definitely not be my last Evie Wyld novel.

This is a super novel told with multiple perspectives across different timelines and set in Australia and London. Max has died and his ghost, his spirit is watching his partner, Hannah, watching her grief and trying to find out why she was always so silent about her past and never wanted him to meet - or even speak to - her parents. Through through different voices we see the life of her grandmother and her mother where violence/trauma is suggested but never described. What the author describes is the effect of the violence. Hannah came to London to escape, her mother went to Australia, with her brother, to escape. The flat Hannah and Max live in is a couple of street away from where her grandmother lived. There are Then, Before and After 'chapters' where different voices are heard. After is Max describing his afterlife as he watches Hannah, Before is Max and Hannah's life together and Then is Hannah growing up in Australia in a place called The Echoes where there was once a school for Aboriginal girls who had been taken from their families, and the graveyard where they were buried. Echoes can also relate, I suppose, to the echoes of the generational trauma that lingers. Max's narrative is quite emotional at times, especially the final section, and as you learn about Hannah's life and the reasons for her silence, you understand the effect the echoes of the trauma suffered by her mother, her grandmother has had upon her. There was the odd moment - if I am totally honest - where I did get a little confused, but overall this is a touching read and I enjoyed - if that is the correct word considering the darkness - seeing the parts of Hannah that she had kept hidden from all around her.

Wow, this book really caught me by surprise. I was expecting to like it but wasn't expecting to love it as much as I did. It's one of the best examples of multiple POVs that I've read in a long time - maybe ever. Each narrative voice is so strong and unique that you're never lost in the story. This book is both hilarious and heartbreaking. I found the characters and the story so compelling, and the way it only lets you in slowly meant I couldn't put it down. Honestly, this might be a new favourite of mine, it was just excellent and I can't wait to get myself the physical copy when it comes out! 4.5 stars rounded up, but depending on how this stews in my bead over the next couple of weeks it may be bumped to the full 5! Thank you so much to NetGalley and the publisher, Jonathan Cape, for this ARC, I'm delighted I got to read it so soon!

The Echoes tells the story of Hannah's life, through multiple perspectives including her own, her dead boyfriend's and various family members'. I found it engaging, warm, sad, and thoroughly touching. I really enjoyed the split narratives and the exploration of the parts of everyone that are unknowable to the people around them.

This is a really powerful novel dissecting the relationship between Max and Hannah after his death. The movement between timelines and character development is beautiful as is the writing style

Evie Wyld can really write. She knows her timelines and her characters and builds her story to a taut and intense and emotional read. There’s always darkness and violence in her books but she doesn’t describe it, she shows the effects on her characters and how they cope and somehow get on with their lives. The main character in this book is Hannah, an Australian woman living in a flat in London with her boyfriend Max. The flat is near a house where her grandmother lived before moving to Australia. The other major narrative is the ghost of Max in the flat (Surprisingly it works here, dead narrators don’t always work for me). That’s the ‘After’ thread, then there’s ‘Before’ about Max and Hannah’s relationship, and ‘Then’ set in Hannah’s childhood growing up in a house in ‘The Echoes’ on land where there’s also a schoolhouse that trained Aboriginal girls taken from their families. (Yes, there’s a graveyard, definitely not good vibes here). A powerful read.

Absolutely breathtaking, no-one writes about intergenerational female trauma like Evie Wyld. A truly mesmerising, powerful and heartbreaking novel. I loved how Evie used time in this novel, and she really cleverly switches between character perspectives. Brilliant, as always!

Set across several timelines and two continents, The Echoes unfolds Hannah’s story, revealing what lies behind her reluctance to talk to her late partner, Max, about her Australian family let alone introduce him to them.
Hannah and her rebellious sister grew up, tainted by association with The Echoes, a brutal boarding school where indigenous girls suffered ‘developmental regulations’ to make them acceptable to white people. Their mother was a runaway, fleeing an alcoholic, abusive mother with her brother, even more damaged than she is. Hannah came to London to escape, obsessed with a photograph of her grandmother outside a house just two streets away from where she and Max bought an apartment. They’ve been together for six years, Max contemplating a proposal and the hopes of a child, when he dies suddenly.
Alternating between three narrative strands - Max’s observations, their life together before he died and Hannah’s Australian childhood - Wyld tells her story, so that we, and Max, slowly come to understand why Hannah is so taciturn about her past, finding it impossible to escape its burden. If, like me, the idea of a dead narrator feels like a step too far, don’t be put off. It’s a risky device, but it works, perhaps because Wyld laces Max’s strand with a light humour in contrast with Hannah’s much darker narrative through which themes of colonialism and abuse are woven. An engaging, unorthodox love story which I enjoyed although its resolution felt a little strained.

Hannah and Max’s relationship was never great, but now Max is dead, still present in the flat, watching his partner, waiting for the purgatory to end. It’s a tricksy book stylistically, it works best in the chapters where Max is present, watching insects and feeling the presence of everyone who has/ever will live in the flat and seeing Hannah move on in life.

Stylistically, it moves between this and Hannah’s life in late 90’s Australia. And there’s enough bogans, op shops and Anzac biscuits to satisfy nostalgia freaks. Literary readers will enjoy the overarching concept that the eponymous Echoes is the housing estate teenage Hannah lives on, but is also the afterlife that Max lives in and also partially what indigenous Australians call The Dreamtime.

Tonally though, the book seems to suffer from an uneven, emotionally shifting and often jarring tone. It’s meta enough to reference Ghost, Ghostbusters, Truly, Madly, Deeply and Ted Hughes’ poem Anniversary. However, the sly wink of the short story Hannah works on in Uni - resembling Wyld’s best-known novel All The Birds, Singing - seems a little too cute for its own good. See also, Hannah’s mental health crisis portrayed with great dignity, Max’s death played for laughs.

It’s a novel that Sunday supplements will love, but personally, I found it too erratic to be truly beautiful. It’s published by Penguin on August 1st and I thank them for a preview copy. #theechoes.

as a man watches over his love ones in the afterlife, as story is set in a dual timeline. before death and after death.

the descriptive writing of how the afterlife can feel very emotive at times.

i enjoyed how the author explored how max’s girlfriend dealt with grief, whilst also showing the main character looking down on everyone experiencing grief.

this book travels through the girlfriend’s childhood, connecting her memories to her boyfriends death. it can be a bit confusing at times but regardless it’s still an enjoyable read.

FULL REVIEW TO COME JULY 24
Very excited to get started on this, synopsis is telling me it's right up my book galley, great cover also