Echoes Among the Stones

By: Jaime Jo Wright

Narrated by: Pilar Witherspoon

Length: 12 hrs and 34 mins

Publisher's Summary

After Aggie Dunkirk's career is unceremoniously ended by her own mistakes, she finds herself traveling to Wisconsin, where her grandmother, Mumsie, lives alone in her rambling old home. She didn't plan for how eccentric Mumsie has become, obsessing over an old, unsolved crime scene - even going so far as to re-create it in the dollhouse.

Mystery seems to follow her when she finds work as a secretary helping to restore the flooded historical part of the cemetery. Forced to work with the cemetery's puzzling, yet attractive archeologist, she exhumes the past's secrets and unwittingly uncovers a crime that some will go to any length to keep quiet - even if it means silencing Aggie.

In 1946, Imogene Flannigan works in a local factory and has eyes on owning her own beauty salon. But coming home to discover her younger sister's body in the attic changes everything. Unfamiliar with the newly burgeoning world of criminal forensics and not particularly welcomed as a woman, Imogene is nonetheless determined to stay involved. As her sister's case grows cold, Imogene vows to find justice . . . even if it costs her everything.

©2019 Jaime Sundsmo (P)2019 Recorded Books

What a page turner!

This was a thrilling, mesmerizing read that will stay on my mind for a long while. My new favorite from Jaime Jo Wright! A powerful story merging past and present that tackles themes of grief and loss, remembrance and faith. And whew you had me at archeologist & British accent! What a fascinating love interest! Swoon. I’ll be reading this again in the future! Jaime Jo Wright has become one of my favorite authors!

It's Over

I will start with the narrator first. She did have a different woice for each character, that was good. The British voice was forced and was an American version of a BBC miniseries aristocrat.

The story was long and arduous. This was complicated by the really bad grandmother nickname "mumsie." That was like chalk on a blackboard. There was also the jumping back and forth in time. I get it, two women, a crime and 70 years, but eventually find a time and stick with it. Add to that a Brit who calls a woman he has never met "love" for two thirds of the story. The heroine, an empowered millennial, by her own admission, takes no issue with this until two thirds of the way through the book. Then she proceeds to refer to three old ladies helping her by sitting in the hospital with "mumsie" as "the three stooges." She then can galavant around cemetries with the Brit, while being put out if the old gals call with an update. A little self centered?
Yikes. It just keeps going. The other thing that never stopped were all the eyes "twinkling." Couldn't someone just look without glaring or twinkling? The straw that broke the camel's back was when some fragile, barely able to stand or walk geezer not only knocks her down in the parking lot but manages to keep her penned with his cane while barely keeping his balance. I listened to the book and it was laborious listening filled with extraneous character angst and musings. This would be an engaging book if the author lost the trite, especially the awful nicknames and attempts at the 1940's slang, and focused on saying more with a lot less. She could be a very good story teller but she needs to heavily thin the verbage so you will actually care about the characters and stories and not just making it to the end. The actual mystery might have been interesting but by the end I just wanted to finish. Not my fav.

Riveting and hauntingly beautiful

Since this is a Jaime Jo Wright book, I expected a spooky suspense. What I found was a riveting and hauntingly beautiful story about surviving loss and honoring loved ones. This one will stay with me.

3

The book's summary on the Audible New Releases list
jumped right to #1 pick for my listening advenrure. The premise
is so good - if exploring an old abandoned country graveyards interests you. And the characters are interesting....