Echo North is the latest retelling of the East of the Sun and West of the Moon folk tale. To give it a new twist, Meyer has added in elements of Beauty & the Beast, and Tam Lin (one of my favorites).
Echo is forced to make a bargain with the White Wolf in order to save her dying father. As part of the bargain, she must live in a strange, magical house with the Wolf for one year. But Echo soon realizes that the Wolf is not a wolf (as you do) and to save him, she must challenge the wicked Queen of the woods.
The book begins well, in the typical folklore-ish style. Echo’s life before meeting the Wolf is suitably miserable, and her love for her family is deep enough, so that her bargain with the Wolf follows logically. The house the Wolf takes her to is odd and fascinating, and also has magical mirrors which serve as books. You can basically step into them and watch the story play out and participate in it too.
And then… we reach the middle mark and it just becomes a messy hodgepodge. When the author says it’s a mix of those three stories, she means it’s literally, a “mix”. Pieces of three different stories chopped off and glued together under a common name. Even the characterizations are weak, especially for leading lady Echo herself.
A lot of people are writing retellings these days — so, you’ve to add something extra or innovative to make your version more appealing. Adding mirror-books is all very fancy, but not if it’s just a guest appearance. Honestly, the original Norwegian folktale on its own is best at this point, NO need to rehash it! I’m quite disappointed with .
9 replies on “Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer”
I’ve not read the original so clearly that would have to be the starting point for this story. I don’t think I’ll move onto this retelling though.
Lynn 😀
Try out the folktale though! It’s in public domain and has gorgeous illustrations and makes for a lovely short story overall
Sorry it didn’t work for you, but I’m glad you talked about it, because I didn’t know at all the Norwegian tale it’s based on!
Hope you’ll give it a shot!
(the folktale, I mean, haha — have linked it in the post!)
I don’t know any Norweigan folk tales. This does sound good, sorry it didn’t work for you though…
Sigh. I had been really looking forward to it and it began so well… and then just bombed.
Oh that is a lot to mix into one story and sounds like it wasn’t quite successful. I’ve got to say that cover is lovely though! Hope your next read will be much more interesting.
Yes, exactly. It was the cover that drew me in first too. Never judge a book by its over! On the other hand, it wasn’t such a bad book, but that I expected more from it…