The Echo of Old Books
By Barbara Davis
Rare-book dealer Ashlyn Greer’s affinity for books extends beyond the intoxicating scent of old paper, ink, and leather. She can feel the echoes of the books’ previous owners—an emotional fingerprint only she can read. When Ashlyn discovers a pair of beautifully bound volumes that appear to have never been published, her gift quickly becomes an obsession. Not only is each inscribed with a startling incrimination, but the authors, Hemi and Belle, tell conflicting sides of a tragic romance.
With no trace of how these mysterious books came into the world, Ashlyn is caught up in a decades-old literary mystery, beckoned by two hearts in ruins, whoever they were, wherever they are. Determined to learn the truth behind the doomed lovers’ tale, she reads on, following a trail of broken promises and seemingly unforgivable betrayals. The more Ashlyn learns about Hemi and Belle, the nearer she comes to bringing closure to their love story—and to the unfinished chapters of her own life.
I
have absolutely no idea how this is so highly rated on Goodreads. I
don't want to be rude about it, but I found both romances unsatisfying,
the mysteries unmysterious and the inclusion of Ashlyn's magical
"book-sensing" power to be completely irrelevant and unnecessary. And
look, it's not that bad! But an average of 4.26 stars??? Nothing like
severe disappointment to ruin the experience for you.
Maybe
we'll go in reverse order: Ashlyn, bookseller, who is sad and alone
because (we find out in installments) her mother died of cancer instead
of getting chemo, her father shot himself a few weeks later, and her
cheating ex-boyfriend committed suicide to taunt her, has the ability to
touch certain books and "feel" the emotions of the owner. This ability
is described in detail in the first chapter, and has no impact on any of
the rest of the story. Why is it included you might ask? I have no
idea! It would be perfectly reasonable for Ashlyn to be interested in a
privately published book with a sad love story even without sensing
anguish from its owner. Nothing else in the book smacks of magical
realism. It feels so weirdly shoehorned in that I have to imagine it was
left over from a separate author idea and Davis just couldn't bear not
to use it, no matter how little sense it made.
Then,
we have two competing storylines, Ashlyn and Ethan in the present,
tracking down the original lovers, and "Belle" and "Hemi" in the past.
And of course this is a personal preference issue, but every time I
wanted to read "Hemi" as a nickname I wanted to cringe (it's short for
Hemingway because he wants to be a writer!). This was only made worse when it was apparent that Belle
and Hemi (real names: Marian and Hugh) actually called each other these
things in real life and they weren't just nom de plumes.
Marian
and Hugh's love is supposed to be one for the ages, one so overpowering
it conquered a prior engagement, and kept them bitter and in pain for
DECADES after they split. In the book, we find out that they meet at her
engagement party to another man, and they're together for about four
months when they're 21 and 26, respectivey. Alas, our lovers begin fighting because even after four months,
Marian hasn't ended her engagement, and then she finds out Hugh has lied
to her about writing a hit piece about how her father shut her mother
up in an asylum because she was Jewish, but also crazy, and then slipped
a knife to her so she could commit suicide. This information upsets
Marian, naturally, but Hugh blames her for not trusting that he wasn't
actually going to publish it. Truly, a love to last.
Also, there's a lot of suicide in this book.
Ethan
and Ashlyn's love is less overwrought but correspondingly less
interesting as well, so the chapters with them slowly deciding to kiss
have all the appeal of a warm bowl of oatmeal. It's good for you, but
it's not what you look forward to in the mornings.
I
liked Ashlyn fine until she decides to track down the original people
in the book and (1) instead of looking for Belle/Marian, who we are told
was super rich and her engagement party was the toast of the town and
we know the date of the engagement party and also the identity of her
fiance - instead of looking to see if there was a mention of the party
in the papers (WHICH THERE WAS, we find out later) instead she tries to
track down Hugh/Hemi's boss,
a tangential character nicknamed Goldie, because she was a lady who
owned a newspaper, despite the fact that knowing who Goldie was would
absolutely not give you any more information about who either Belle or
Hemi were. THEN (2), she assumes that some dude banging Goldie when she
died thirty years later was Hemi. Why? I'm not sure, but I guess the
idea was that this guy who was apparently so hung up on Belle that 13
years later he's writing bound books to her, becomes his old boss' lover
twenty years later. I mean, it makes sense if you ignore logic and
reasonable probability.
Ethan has no
personality other than "willing to welcome a strange and nosy woman into
his house and life". Hemi/Hugh is distractingly obnoxious, given that
he blames Marian for being upset that he lies multiple times - first
about the fact that he was there to investigate her father and second
that he was actually investigating her mother's suspicious death. He's
also upset that she doesn't trust him more. Why should she, you wonder,
but it's okay because in return, he later gets told he missed the first
43 years of his child's life.
The fact
that Marian was pregnant when she left New York was totally expected, so
much so that I assumed that to be the case based on absolutely nothing
but my sure confidence in this book's use of cliche. How else to stuff
more melodrama into this whole affair than for her to discover she is
carrying her terrible lover's child, but alas, too late! They are
already parted forevermore. Also pretty obvious that Cee-cee, Marian's
older sister, somehow swapped the notes so Hugh got the break up one
instead of the "Wait for me!" one. The only surprise there was that the
little messenger boy, Cee-cee's son and Ethan's father, Dickey, wasn't
also involved, given how suspiciously guilty he acted.
The
book is fine, it's FINE. But there's no tension at any point - we know
Marian and Hugh separate and we know they don't get back together
before 1984. As mentioned above, none of their separation brought
tension or surprise either. In fact, I began to wish Marian
and Hugh would separate sooner, since they were so much more annoying
when they were together. Ashlyn and Ethan also don't carry any tension
or surprise. They seem to get involved with each other more because it's
expected of them as two of the primary characters in this book who are
single and the same age. Perhaps it's a little surprising that Ashlyn
doesn't end up with Marian's kid Zachary, but otherwise, ho hum.
The
only really bizarre thing is that SOMEHOW after 43 YEARS and several
missed connections, Hugh decides to show up at Marian's big event the
DAY AFTER Ashlyn and Ethan discuss the whole affair with Marian and find
out that Zachary is actually Hugh's child. And the two events are
completely unrelated. Now that really does take some magical thinking.
4: A Book With Two Or More Books On The Cover Or "Book" In The Title