Ghosts Stories & Secrets: Finding Inspiration for Echoes Between Us

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Echoes Between Us is bestselling author Katie McGarry’s breakout teen contemporary novel about a girl with everything to lose and the boy who will do anything to save her. Read more from Katie about her inspiration behind the story.


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Dear Reader,

We all have a ghost story…

Some we share. Some we don’t. Some are so real and so creepy that we try desperately to erase them from our souls. Shadow people we saw as children. The double take when we saw someone down the hallway who shouldn’t have been there. Goosebumps when we walk over a grave. No matter who you are, or what your walk in life is, there’s something about a good ghost story that draws us in, hypnotizes us into staying and then begs us to tell our own.

Everyone has secrets…

 

No matter how small or trivial that secret might be to someone else, it’s still your secret, still that thing that you hold close and don’t want anyone to know…it’s like a ghost that haunts you—the shadow in the corner waiting for you to close your eyes at night so it can pounce.

My entire life I’ve been surrounded by ghost stories. Growing up, I could see the hill where local legend said a young girl haunted the stretch of road where she had died and flagged down drivers late at night for a ride. But she would disappear from the backseat of the car once the driver passed the cemetery where she was buried. I heard stories surrounding the multiple TB hospitals in my home state that contained dangerous spirits. I heard from friends in my neighborhood about things that happened late at night that no one could explain.

Then as a teenager, I had secrets. As my life began to spiral out of control from secrets, I had a dream of a ghost haunting me, following me, reaching out to harm me and then I woke up to the sound of glass breaking. A mirror in the bathroom across from my room inexplicably shattered, and when I sat up in bed shaking uncontrollably, I saw a shadowy figure in my room watching me. My dog who had been sleeping on the floor whined and backed away from the shadow, and then I heard three knocks on my window. Each one slow, methodical, and my heart beat out of my chest. Fear paralyzed me from the inside out, and I knew in that moment that if I didn’t change, if I didn’t start making better choices than I had, I knew nothing good was going to happen to me.

What if our secrets were so encompassing, grew so large, that they began to haunt us?

Veronica sees her mother’s ghost, the afterimages of blinding migraines that consume her life. Sawyer has an adrenaline addiction that could kill him. Drawn to each other after experiencing shadow people in the foyer of their apartment building, can they help each other battle the demons that haunt their every step—or will they push their luck too far and risk losing their lives?

Read Echoes Between Us to find out.

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