Echo definitely helped scratch that itch.

One of the weirdest, creepiest horror novels I’ve read is Hex by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, and I’ve been eager to read more of his work ever since. It appears when Nick attempted to climb Maudit, an ancient evil from the mountain may have come back with him. Meanwhile, 32 patients die under brutal and mysterious circumstances at the hospital where Nick is staying, and then come the suicides of the staff who were treating him. Nick himself has little recollection of the incident, doped up on morphine with his face wrapped up in bandages.Īs Sam wrestles with the shock of almost losing Nick and what their lives will look like going forward, he leaves Switzerland to return to his home of New York in order to decompress. The doctors and nurses at the Swiss hospital where they are treating Nick are strangely evasive when asked questions about his injuries, or where he and Augustin were climbing. Or at least, that was the official story, though Nick’s boyfriend Sam Avery isn’t so sure. Tragedy strikes, however, with Augustin falling to his death, while Nick survives, albeit with his half his face obliterated by rockfall. Mountaineer Nick Grevers and his climbing partner Augustin had traveled to a remote Swiss Alps peak called the Maudit in an effort to scale it. I’ve been reading a lot of “haunted” books lately, but Echo was pretty special because it’s not every day one comes across a story about a haunted mountain.

This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own. I received a review copy from the publisher.

Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt