“Books are rib and spine, blood and ink, the stuff of dreams dreamed and lives lived. One page, one day, one journey at a time.” — Ashlyn Greer, The Echo of Old Books
If you love books, Barbara Davis’ The Echo of Old Books is for you. It is an extremely compelling story of love, betrayal, the consequences of choices, and finding redemption. This is a dual timeline story switching between 1984 New Hampshire and 1941 New York. Ashlyn Greer is the owner of a rare books store and when she comes across a pair of beautiful books that have no author, copyright, or publisher listed she becomes intrigued, especially as she can feel the echoes of the book–the emotions of the books’ previous owners. She becomes even more invested as she begins reading the books, each starting with an accusatory statement by the authors, Hemi and Belle. Ashlyn realizes these two books tell the story of a doomed romance, one from Hemi’s perspective and the other from Belle’s. This was a definite page turner for me and I could not put it down. It is beautifully written and I hope you enjoy it too!