Our Last Echoes
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $10.99
Publisher Description
Melissa Albert meets Twin Peaks in this supernatural thriller about one girl's hunt for the truth about her mother's disappearance.
In 1973, the thirty-one residents of Bitter Rock disappeared. In 2003, so did my mother. Now, I've come to Bitter Rock to find out what happened to her—and to me. Because Bitter Rock has many ghosts. And I might be one of them.
Sophia's earliest memory is of drowning. She remembers the darkness of the water and the briny taste as it filled her throat, the sensation of going under. She remembers hands pulling her back to safety, but that memory is impossible—she's never been to the ocean.
But then Sophia gets a mysterious call about an island named Bitter Rock, and learns that she and her mother were there fifteen years ago--and her mother never returned. The hunt for answers lures her to Bitter Rock, but the more she uncovers, the clearer it is that her mother is just one in a chain of disappearances.
People have been vanishing from Bitter Rock for decades, leaving only their ghostly echoes behind. Sophia is the only one who can break the cycle—or risk becoming nothing more than another echo haunting the island.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Sophia Novak, 18, believes that her mother, Joy, died in Montana 15 years ago, so when Abby Ryder, 17, calls asking about Joy's disappearance from Bitter Rock, Alaska, Sophia tells her she's mistaken. Then Abby emails a picture of Joy and three-year-old Abby standing on the island's shore. According to Abby—the ward of Dr. Andrew Ashford, who investigates "inexplicable phenomena"—Joy is not the first to vanish from Bitter Rock without a trace. Sophia, homeless after aging out of foster care, secures an internship at Bitter Rock's avian research center. Abby also finds an excuse to visit, and with the help of Sophia's boss's 18-year-old son, Liam Kapoor, the girls start searching for answers. Atmospheric writing and an abundance of genuine chills distinguish this spine-tingling work of existential horror from Marshall (Rules for Vanishing). Video transcripts and assorted ephemera documenting various experiences on the island—Joy's included—intersperse Sophia's narrative, adding dimension and stoking suspense. Aspects of the plot falter under scrutiny, but by and large Marshall delivers a disturbingly imaginative tale that is both deeply human and truly terrifying. Ages 14–up.
