An Echo of Courage (December, 2025)

By Heidi Ennis

 

Genre: Christian historical fiction, Christian romance

Pages (print): 452

Set amid the feral beauty of the 1880s Pacific Northwest, An Echo of Courage is Book Two in the Columbia River series. We like, Totally Love-ified the first book, A Father’s Dream. (See our review here.) This one? Not so much. We’ll get to that in a min. So kindly keep your hair on, Cupcake. First, here’s a synopsis:

The Columbia River, 1885. After a devastating accident, Pauel Oman faces constant pain and an uncertain future. Once the dependable one, he now wonders if his life holds any meaning. Yet through his sister’s stubborn care, his best friend’s sharp humor, and the steady presence of a wolf named Essa light and hope begin to return. Pauel learns that courage is not found in grand heroics, but in the daily choice to believe again.

Far downriver in Mud Town, Penelope only dreams of a life beyond hardship. When a blue-eyed Swedish immigrant shows her a rare kindness, a fragile spark of faith awakens. But as the shadows of her past close in, she must flee upriver sick and afraid. But she’s never alone-guided by unexpected companions and a silent wolf with an ancient story leading her toward the man who already captured her heart. When their paths collide on the wild banks of the Columbia River and Penny’s shadows are not far behind, will courage be enough to carry them through?

A faith-filled tale of healing, redemption, and enduring love along the mighty Columbia River.

We absolutely loved this synopsis and the themes mentioned. We had bigly expectations for this book. But it just didn’t resonate. For one thing, it moves at a snail’s pace. What might otherwise be a sparkling blend of wit, wisdom, legend, history and adventure is too often hamstrung by confusing timelines, dueling chronologies, and story arcs that add nothing to the narrative except to bog it down (Hi, Taymema). It gets tiresome. These are some of the reasons we DNFed this puppy. Sigh.

We bailed out at about 300-ish pages.  And that’s a shame. Because this author is a prodigious talent. But we just could not keep our eyes open for one more page.

Yes, there are times when the prose jitterbugs across the page like a Glen Miller tune across a crowded dance floor. The writing style can be richly evocative, weaving a multi-layered, vibrant tapestry of faith, courage, resilience, love and hope. At other times it’s overwritten. The story lingers but sometimes gets lost in the attempt to build a robust, period-accurate world that deeply explores faith journeys.

Essa the Extraordinary

The strongest, most compelling character by far is the mysterious guardian/messenger she-wolf, Essa. We love Essa! Her internal monologue is italicized, setting it off from the rest of the narrative. But readers may want to leave  trail of breadcrumbs when Essa roams through “many generations” with different boys and then with Johanna. And do we really need a step-by-step narration of Hann’s journey to the waterfall after escaping Madame Cas and fleeing Father Simon’s protection when the father is murdered? It just goes on and on and on. While the story has potential, it loses focus too often and hops down too many bunny trails to keep us engaged over the long haul.

Paging the Oracle

The weakest characters by far are Taymema and his 1880s counterpart, Pauel. Kimber: Can I just smack those guys? As in: Dudes. Get. Over. Yourselves. They major in feeling sorry for themselves and wallowing in self-pity. For pages and pages. We get that these two had tough lives. We got it the first 2,678 times it’s mentioned. No need to beat us over the head with it. That tiresome thing again. And inserting that “many generations ago” story-within-a story thing? Why that’s inserted is a mystery for the Oracle of Delphi. All it does is jerk readers out of the main story and leave them scrambling to figure out where the heck they are now and why. The result is a clunky timeline that’s as shifty and twisty as Snake Alley

.

Maybe this wraps up and comes together by the end of the book. We just got to the point where we didn’t care anymore.

Echo does indeed feature flashes of brilliance and skillful storytelling. But these are too often diminished or diluted by plodding pacing, confusing timelines and muddled story arcs. Even so, it explores some important themes with skill and aplomb. We appreciated the way it avoids canned answers and pre-packaged platitudes. It’s a worthwhile read if you have the time. (Maybe we’ll return to it in the spring. You never know.)

Since we didn’t finish this book we won’t be rating it.