The Echoes of Us

Omg my heart What an incredible and unique love story. So beautiful and heart breaking and sizzling with romantic chemistry.. I adore this book and I can't wait to buy it for my daughters who I know will treasue it as much as I do.

Such beautiful prose and meticulous plotting. I found the narrative mesmerising and Jen and Robbie will haunt my thoughts for a very long time.

It goes straight into my best books of all time.

I loved this. I knew that it may be an unconventional romantic story but I was wholly unprepared for the layers within the plot and the characters. I finished the book within a day because I seriously couldn’t stop reading - I was hooked from the very beginning. I loved the characters, even the antihero and I was surprised by how much I was rooting for both of them individually. This novel is going to stay with me and I can’t wait to reread it.

What a fabulous love story! I really enjoyed it. Highly recommended by me.
Thanks for the opportunity to read & review it.

The Echoes of Us by Emma Steele is a beautifully written page turner that captures the evolution of a relationship using a unique and thought provoking narrative.

After 8 months apart Jenn and Robbie have found their way back to each other. The evening after their reunion, they are in the car together, thinking about their future - a future which could be taken away from them when they find themselves in the path of a truck. In this moment Jenn’s life starts flashing before her eyes, and it’s not just her that can see it.

Robbie finds himself jumping through Jenn’s memories, some are from her childhood others are from their time together and then their subsequent break up. Through these memories the author tells us a glorious story of love, family, friendship, growing up, heartbreak and healing.

The Echoes of Us is definitely one to read, it is a cleverly layered novel that answers one question then creates another on the following page - in a very pleasing way. Even when you think it’s all wrapped up, the author surprises you with more of her gratifying turns that make this book so readable. It will leave you broken but also hopeful.

I loved this book and will be recommending it to anyone who listens.

Wow, just wow! I cannot believe this is a debut for the author, Emma Steele, as this will not only be looked at as the love story of the year but in my view, it will become a love story to remember for many years to come once it is published. My heart is bursting with emotion having finished this book.

At the start of the story, we meet Jenn and Robbie, who are back together after eight months apart, but on their way home their car is involved in a collision with a truck. As the truck comes hurtling towards them, Robbie sees Jenn’s memories play out before him like a spectator. What is happening? Why are these memories important? Can he learn something from them he doesn’t yet know? And if he does learn from them, will that make a difference to him, to Jenn, to them as a couple?

First and foremost this book is about love. But not only Jenn and Robbie’s love for each other. Through their stories, together and their own, our eyes are opened to all the kinds of love we may know in life: parental love; the enduring love of friendships, whether it’s the everyday kind or the one where you can pick up the phone after years of not speaking and start where you left off; the steadfast love that goes the distance or the love which is like fireworks and consumes you with all its spark; the once in a lifetime kind of love and of course the love for ourselves, which we so often lack but it influences so much. I loved the view that not all of these loves are supposed to last forever because life moves us forward but their imprint remains and that imprint is often as important as the moment it was left on us.

I always love the sentiment that through the memories we share with the ones we love and have loved, they never truly leave us. This is also explored in Emma’s novel. For me personally this gives me comfort on the days I miss those who are no longer with us but in the story we also see the flipside of this: how sometimes these memories can make it hard to move forwards.

The story is also about living in the moment, about making the most of the time we are given in this life, about never giving up on our dreams, about not being scared to make that first move if that’s what it takes and trying while we still can but it also shows that in all that, what is important are all the tiny things we sometimes take for granted. Just like Robbie realises in one of the flashbacks, that often we don’t appreciate the small ordinary moments with the people we love and yet looking back on life, they are what makes us happy.

One other sentence also stood out to me in the book and that was when a stranger in Australia said to Jenn: “Remember, you’re exactly where you need to be right now.” This is also such a comforting thought. We often think of what ifs but I love the acceptance that comes with the idea that each decision we’ve made brought us to this moment and as long as learn from what brought us here and make the most of the now then the future will be ok and we are exactly where we need to be.

I always like to pick out favourite quotes from my reads and I can’t finish this review without mentioning one more quote: “Because some types of love are like that. They imprint on your soul and change you forever.”

So incredibly grateful to Netgalley, Mountainleopardpress and Headlinebooks for giving me the chance to read Emma’s book before it is published on 6 June 2024.

Oh my, this story was beautiful on so many levels yet heartbreaking as you follow the tale of Robbie and Jenn and flashback through their lives together

If you’re going to compare a book to luminary comparisons such as David Nicholls’ One Day and Audrey Niffenegger’s The Time Traveler’s Wife, then you really are raising the bar of reader expectations. To be honest, that’s probably why it took me a few chapters to get into The Echoes of Us. And then suddenly, it seemed, I was one third of the way in, realizing how very much I had been captivated by this story … and that yes, it does compare to Nicholls and Niffenegger.

With her debut, Emma Steele has come up with a super device (I’m not a jealous writer, honest!) that shows us how what we perceive to be true and real in a relationship is very much tainted by our character, our situation, and our level (or lack thereof) of empathy.

If Robbie shares a number of traits with Dex from One Day, then Jenn perhaps does too with Clare from The Time Traveler’s Wife, at least in terms of being with a partner increasingly long on issues and short on ability to invest in the relationship. So, no surprise then that as Robbie moves through Jenn’s memories of significant times in her life, he finds his memories and impressions don’t quite gel with what he’s seeing.

What’s clever is how The Echoes of Us this is more than a simple second-chance romance trope novel, as Robbie is navigating Jenn’s memories, watching primary moments of her life. Can he find a way to understand and communicate with Jenn before it’s too late? Will they get their second chance?

I was captivated all the way to the very last line. And beyond as I spent days, in fact, processing the story. I’ll be purchasing a copy of the book when it’s released this summer and re-reading because I think an awareness of certain issues and certain time points in Jenn’s remembered life will enhance the reading and takeaway.

The Echoes of Us is a near-masterpiece in its genre: clever, insightful, aware, and never shying away from the truth of its characters. I can’t wait to see what Emma Steele does next.

Thank you to the author, the publishers, and to NetGalley for this ARC.