Can books carry the emotions not just of the author, but also of the owner? Do books impress their stories on us? Can they really change us? All of these questions are explored in the deep and sometimes even painful story that unravels in The Echo of Old Books. Written by bestselling author Barbara Davis, this novel explores some of the deepest human emotions: love, anger, and fear, all tied to one of my favorite subjects: books! There are some interesting parallels and themes in this story that will definitely awaken you!
Summary
The story begins when Ashlyn Greer, a divorced bookstore owner, finds two unique books in a box of donated literature. The books are very similar in style but not perfectly alike. They do not have any copyright information or the authors’ names mentioned anywhere. Ashlyn, who can feel the emotions of the previous owner of any book by touching the object, finds that both have extreme pulls of betrayal and anger layered and layered onto them.
Upon reading the books, she finds that they each tell the opposite side of a love story that ended badly. The man is a poor, up-and-coming journalist, and the girl is a rich heiress. They secretly fall in love and have a fiery affair, planning to get married, but it ends with them parting ways angrily. The man claims that the girl completely rejected him, and the girl firmly believes that he wrote an article that came out revealing an extreme scandal in her family. Neither of them can be right at the same time, and Ashlyn decides she wants to figure out the story’s true version.
She enlists the help of the man who dropped them off to find out who the two lovers are, even though forty years have passed since the books took place. Together, they trace the books to the man’s great-aunt. Eventually, she can inspire the aunt to think about forgiveness and moving past her pain. Her long-lost lover arrives, and together they discover someone else plotted their separation. They are reunited after forty years apart. Ashlyn also finds love with the man who helped her find this couple, and they become a close family unit.
Some Favorite Parts
The story is unraveled in a very interesting way. You get to read the two books along with Ashlyn. The parallel versions of the story are put right next to each other so that you can hear the same scene happen from two different perspectives. This is very engaging and truly deepens the theme of the story as you see the contradicting viewpoints. It reveals how the same experience can be received completely differently by different people, even lovers. This rhetorical device makes the concept hit home.
I also enjoyed the way the couple handles such a wide variety of emotions. At any point, they might be feeling extremely angry with their partner or scared but also be feeling great attachment to them. This is a realistic approach to a complicated relationship that you do not often see displayed in media. There is not necessarily always a Disney princess fairytale. That is not the meaning of love. This is displayed in this book and shows that shades of gray sometimes come up among the black and white.
One of the major themes of the book is how our scars are part of who we are. Each character has undergone some extreme experiences in their lifetime. Some self-inflicted, and some are things that have merely happened to them. These experiences color how they process things, the decisions they make, and many other things about them. However, it never defines who they are. They are given the choice to move past their trauma and begin a new life. This is a very hopeful and realistic approach to enduring things in our lifetime. It went along with the theme of the book beautifully and made the ending all the more satisfying.
Some Final Takeaways
In the book, Ashlyn is not just a bookstore owner, she also does bookbinding to bring in extra money. While this can include binding new books, her market is primarily for restoring old books, whether they are very valuable or merely sentimental. I had never really heard the “inside scoop” on this industry and found it fascinating. It is a special line of business and one that one day I may need to use, so it was good to know about. It also added a special element to the overarching theme of redemption in the story.
I also found the addition of Ashlyn’s ability to read the emotions of books very interesting. This seemed almost underplayed, casually put in without much hype. It was very clear that this was not the main purpose of the story. However, it may have been more realistic to dive into this concept a little deeper instead of it feeling as if it is almost used for convenience’s sake.
Overall, this story displayed an engaging concept in a very unique fashion. It dove far into the themes of love, betrayal, forgiveness, and redemption. The heights of human emotion are displayed and teach us how these emotions can lead us astray and hide the truth. It will make you reflect upon yourself and how you handle the trials that you experience in your life. You will learn that there is more to forgiveness than you ever thought.