The Echo She Left Behind is a short novella suitable for young teens. It is a time slip story where the female protaganist slips from the current time (2015) to 1880. She is immediately taken in by a family and taught how to behave in the Old West. There is no time spent trying to figure out how she got there, or spent trying how to get home. The family, and the rest of the town for that matter, seem to accept her presence rather quickly and easily. The story moves along quickly with little character development. The story progesses from generation to generation to finish up where it started. This would be a good choice for a young reader interested in frontier history and starting on chapter books.

Dear Missing Friend is a lovely tale of an Irish family’s immigrant journey based on a little-known story from the author’s own family history. The tale is told through correspondence between the main character, Cathy, and her family members and friends and sometimes a few famous names. I found the story well told and interesting with lots of historic details. I admit that I was a little in the dark about the motivations of the main character. I didn’t quite get why she married the man that she did – against her family’s advice and her own instincts. It was not apparent to me why she fell so madly and suddenly in love. Trying to avoid a spoiler, I was a little perplexed about her reasons for other relationships too. However, I felt that the letters were written in the authentic style of the period – meaning personal feelings weren’t always openly shared. I would recommend this book to readers of historical fiction, epistolary fiction, or the Irish immigrant’s life in the United States.
This book also includes footnotes with photos from the author’s research and family history, as well as book club discussion questions.
I received a free advanced readers copy in exchange for an honest review.

I'll start off by saying that I know that I am not the target audience for this book. It is a YA book aimed at a younger audience than a retired librarian. However, I do read and enjoy a lot of YA books. It is a good book with a good premise and good characters. The main character did not seem authentic to me. I think that that author did too much "telling" ["i'm precocious." "I get in trouble alot"] instead of SHOWING. I enjoyed the plot line and some of the descriptive writing but I felt like the characters needed more development. I especially love a multiple layer mystery, and this one was interesting. A good read for tweens or jr high kids that would like a mildly scary mystery.