Silent Echoes (review)

In 1882, sixteen-year-old Lucy, anxious to please her father and secure income for the family, has been pretending to channel the spirits of the dead in fraudulent séances. After faking it for so long, Lucy is shocked when she actually hears an otherworldly voice asking for help. The voice belongs to Lindsay, a modern-day teen who is hiding in a closet, overwhelmed by her mother's alcoholism and her abusive new stepfather. After Lucy realizes that she can talk back, the two girls strike up an anxious and difficult relationship: Lindsay, certain she is schizophrenic, resists the voice for as long as possible, and Lucy is so distracted by wanting to help that she breaks character mid-séance, risking her career. Jablonski offers an intriguing concept in the parallel stories of Lucy and Lindsay, teens who are struggling to find family, security, and identity in a world that favored quiet young women 120 years ago as little as it does now. Ultimately, the girls' supernatural friendship aids each in her own time, and they reluctantly break their connection (both recognize the temporal danger in Lucy learning too much about the future), knowing that at least their brief cooperation has changed their lives for the better. A superfluous last-minute plot twist reveals a deeper tie between the two as Lindsay discovers that Lucy was her great-great-great grandmother; even without this enforced relationship, the strong bond between the two girls is realistic and compelling. Essentially, this is a ghost story without any actual ghosts and as such, realistic and mystery fans alike should find much to enjoy in this novel.