Book Review: House of Echoes

A great Gothic grabber! Struggling writer Ben Tierney flees New York city with his troubled family - bipolar wife Caroline, strange eight-year-old son Charlie, and baby Bub - for a tiny upstate village where his ancestors fought through the Revolutionary War. Before long, things start going downhill. The family encounters strangely obsessed villagers, a creepy, crumbling mansion, and SOMETHING IN THE WOODS that leaves dismembered animals everywhere and watches Charlie's every move. Kind of like The Shining meets Village of the Damned. It's an old formula, but Duffy makes it work well. I would have given it five stars save for a lapse in logic at the end. Still well worth the read.