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Saturday, March 21, 2015

ARC Review: Echoes by Laura K. Curtis


Decent mystery, great action, very entertaining.

Echoes in a nutshell: Callie discovers that something was not quite right about her birth. Her parents are deceased so Callie embarks on a mission to untangle the questions she has surrounding her birth by herself. Her quest takes her to St. Martin where she encounters the brooding and extremely fine Mac. Mac is embroiled in his own mystery regarding the disappearance of his estranged wife who happens to look exactly like Callie. Dead bodies, bombs and some James Bond level ish ensue.

As a mystery/suspense, this was a good book. It was intriguing and fast paced. The story line was interesting and took several unexpected turns. I personally am one of those mystery readers who want the answers dangled just out of reach for the entire story. I love to guess whodunit but really, I don’t want to know until the last possible moment. So, I was less than pleased when the whole mystery kind of unravels around the 58% mark of the book. I also wasn’t thrilled that I had figured out the “who” though not the “why” or the “how,” very early on. Even though the mystery collapsed before I would have liked, the action and suspense continued and my impression of the storyline was that it was pure entertainment.

This is not a romance in the traditional sense. I usually don’t read books with as little sex as this one had. Why? Because sex in a book is like carbs in real life. You need it to get you going but too much… makes you fat? I don’t know, that analogy broke down on me. The point is, I like a little spice to…spice things up. There wasn’t much spice here but a relationship does develop between Callie and Mac. Their interactions were well depicted and seemed genuine. I particularly enjoyed the substance of Mac and Callie’s dialogue. Readers get to experience Mac and Callie’s background and are drawn into the romance aspect of the book. I thoroughly enjoyed their emerging affair and though it could have been a little bit spicier, it certainly added flavor to the overall storyline. The Callie/Mac relationship also helped to keep things interesting when the mystery kind of crumbled on us.

The writing of this book is excellent. I respect authors who can write about a variety of locations and events in a believable voice because it indicates some effort was put into creating the story and that was certainly present in this book. I recommend Echoes for those readers who love suspense and action books. I would give it a less enthusiastic recommendation for mystery and romance readers but I would still suggest it because it’s a good story no matter what you like.

**ARC provided by Publisher**

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