Echo Lake: A Novel

When 30-something Emily Collins inherits her recently murdered Aunt's house she moves to Heartshorne, Oklahoma, to claim it and confront her family's dark past. After her dead mother begins speaking to her in dreams, Emily stumbles upon a horrible community secret that leads to terrifying revelations about the supernatural pull of Echo Lake.

Kirkus Reviews

"Trent’s years as a poet serve her well in this heavily atmospheric novel, which deftly conjures up both evil and the small town’s complicit reluctance to face its past."

Kyle Minor, author of Praying Drunk

"Echo Lake is more than just a good debut novel. It is the coming-out party for Letitia Trent, the new poet-queen of neo-noir."

Paula Bomer, author of Inside Madeleine

“In Echo Lake, Letitia Trent, with deceptively simple, beautiful language, creates a small American town slowly self destructing under the weight of its secrets. Trent illuminates the mystery of family and community, the pain of loss, all the while spinning a tale of murder and suspense. It's at turns a lovely and bone chilling read.”

Karen Brown, author of The Longings of Wayward Girls

“In Echo Lake, Trent’s small town characters guard their secrets, and warn their children away from the mist-covered lake. Dark, ominous, and lyrical, Echo Lake is a beautiful exploration of loss, and the menace of deceptive surfaces.”

Sophie Littlefield, author of House of Glass

“Trent’s debut novel combines a ripping good scare with prose as rich as dark verse. Her characters wear the imprint of the past like livid bruises, the bravest among them untangling their distorted histories to discover truths about the nature of community, family and self."

Monkeybicycle

"Echo Lake itself is perhaps the most memorable aspect of Echo Lake; Trent builds it up to be a truly eerie setting, a body of sickly water that is as haunting as it is haunted, where one cannot go swimming without risk of injury, thanks to the debris that lies just under the surface, and the fumes that pour out of it at night."

About the Author

Letitia Trent grew up in Vermont and Oklahoma and spent her teenage years traveling with her flea-marketing parents. She received her MFA in poetry from Ohio State University. Her work has appeared in journals such as The Denver Quarterly, Fence, Folio, The Journal, Blazevox, and The Black Warrior Review. Her poetry collections include One Perfect Bird (2012) and You aren't in this movie (2012). She was the 2010 winner of the Alumni Flash Writing Award from the Ohio State University's The Journal and has been awarded fellowships from The Vermont Studio Center and the MacDowell Colony.

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