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Reviewed by Lucinda E Clarke for Readers' Favorite
Jim West and Melissa Riggio’s Echo tells the story of a young man, Ted, who loses his teaching job, followed by his wife leaving him and taking their son with her. He sinks into a deep depression and only holds down his job on a construction site because it’s owned by his ex-father-in-law. Ted falls seven stories from a beam and wakes up in the hospital to find he has lost four years of his life. He begins a brand-new life, full of ambition and hope. He meets and falls in love with Melissa, his soulmate. However, the doctor has warned him that his old memories, together with his depressive mindset, will return once the amnesia wears off and he will have no recollection of the days in between. He will find any changes he made bewildering and incomprehensible.
Echo by Jim West and Melissa Riggio is certainly an interesting concept, and I wondered if this was a fictional idea, or whether it is based on medical fact. Either way, it was enough to keep me turning the pages to find out what happened at the end. In places, I found it a little repetitive and wanted the story to move on a bit faster. The characters were well-drawn, especially John, Ted’s best friend. Ben in the antiques/hardware shop was a kind, gentle soul, and Melissa was an enigma, to begin with. I liked that the mirror was broken twice and wondered if the story was going to loop around, but I’m not going to give any spoilers here.
