Echo by Thomas Olde Heuvelt

From Goodreads

It’s One Thing to Lose Your Life
It’s Another to Lose Your Soul

When climber Nick Grevers is brought down from the mountains after a terrible accident he has lost his looks, his hopes and his climbing companion. His account of what happened on the forbidden peak of the Maudit is garbled, almost hallucinogenic. Soon it becomes apparent more than his shattered body has returned: those that treat his disfigured face begin experiencing extraordinary and disturbing psychic events that suggest that Nick has unleashed some ancient and primal menace on his ill-fated expedition.

Nick’s partner Sam Avery has a terrible choice to make. He fell in love with Nick’s youth, vitality and beauty. Now these are gone and all that is left is a haunted mummy-worse, a glimpse beneath the bandages can literally send a person insane.

Sam must decide: either to flee to America, or to take Nick on a journey back to the mountains, the very source of the curse, the little Alpine Village of Grimnetz, its soul-possessed Birds of Death and its legends of human sacrifice and, ultimately, its haunted mountain, the Maudit.

My thoughts

I came across this Author online and I was intrigued to read the synopsis of his books, they appealed to me as I grew up reading Stephen King books and his books have been likened to early books by King.

I grabbed a copy of this from my local Library, this is the first book that I have read by this Author and I have a copy of Hex by him waiting to be read.

Echo tells the story of Nick and his partner Sam.  Nick is an experienced climber, but one day the worst happens to him, he has a climbing accident suffering some life changing injuries and his face takes a battering.  Sadly, his climbing companion suffers worse than Nick as he loses his life on the mountain.  They had been climbing Maudit a mountain that had a reputation of being haunted, it was one of the peaks in a mountain range close to an Alpine village known as Grimnetz.  As the battered Nick is being nursed back to some form of normality, it soon becomes apparent that their is more to him than their was before.  It's as if Nick is possessed in some ways and what is it that is appearing to possess him?

This was an odd story in some ways, but that's not always a bad thing.  At times you wondered what was happening, but it kept you reading as you wanted to know more.  To me Maudit the mountain became a character in the story as it appeared to take on a life of it's own, it had a huge effect on Nick.  The story kept me intrigued and if you're a fan of Stephen King, then this will be up your street too.