Echo North(86)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

EAST OF THE SUN, WEST OF the Moon, is a Norwegian fairytale that has its roots in the myth of Cupid and Psyche, as does Beauty and the Beast—all contain elements of a girl going to live with a monster in a magical castle. In the original East of the Sun, the wolf is a white bear, and he’s been enchanted by a Troll Queen who lives in a place that’s east of the sun, west of the moon. The girl embarks on an impossible journey to find him, enlisting the help of all the winds on her way—the North Wind is the one who takes her to the Troll Queen’s castle.

For Echo’s story, I have also borrowed a big element from the Scottish ballad Tam Lin, in which a brave girl frees an enchanted man from the Fairy Queen by holding on to him while he is transformed into all kinds of hideous monsters.

The setting for Echo North was inspired by nineteenth-century Siberian Russia, and the landscapes Echo travels through in the latter part of the book are real, including the frozen lake, which is based on Lake Baikal, the turquoise ice, and the ice caves. The reindeer skin tent that Ivan and his family live in is real, too.

Behrend and Czjaka, the composers that the wolf introduces Echo to, are Bach and Chopin, very thinly disguised, and Hal’s quip about Behrend/Bach and the harpsichord is true.

I hope I have done justice to Echo’s story and the source materials I’ve drawn from—any inaccuracies or misrepresentations are, of course, my own.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I AM A HUGE LOVER OF fairytales and am so honored to add a retelling of my own to the many, many wonderful ones that have come before me. This book wouldn’t exist without Robin McKinley’s Beauty, which I discovered at the library when I was eleven or twelve (it’s the first book I remember ever making me cry). I’m indebted to Edith Pattou’s beautiful and captivating East, which introduced me to East of the Sun, West of the Moon, and to Diana Wynne Jones’s mesmerizing Fire and Hemlock, a retelling of Tam Lin.

Huge thanks to my wonderful wizardly agent, Sarah Davies, for her insight and tenacity.

To my editor, Lauren Knowles, for her wisdom, encouragement, and brainstorming sessions, and for loving Echo’s story as much as I do.

To the whole team at Page Street, for making my lifelong dream come true a second time!

To my critique partners, Jen Fulmer and Laura Weymouth—I couldn’t function without you! (Special thanks to Jen for the idea to describe the house as a quilt—you’re a genius.) Thanks to Jenny Downer for her astute comments, for keeping me company while I write/edit, and for that marvelous teapot—I’m still in awe.

Thanks to Hanna Hutchinson for reading an early draft—can’t wait for our future joint book tour!

Thanks to Sharon Lovell for introducing me to Chopin all those years ago, and to my piano students, past and present—you guys are the best.

I couldn’t have finished my edits for Echo without my wonderful army of babysitters: Louise and Gary (my mom and dad), my motherin-law Joanie, my sister-in-law Sarah, and Jenny. This book would literally not exist in its present form without you!

Thanks to my dear husband, Aaron, for riding the emotional roller-coaster that is writing a book with me once again, for your support and encouragement, and for keeping me supplied with ice cream and excellent hugs.

And thanks to Arthur for making writing—and life—an even bigger adventure than it was before. Love you, munchkin.





ABOUT THE AUTHOR

JOANNA RUTH MEYER is the author of Beneath the Haunting Sea, which Kirkus described as “epic, musical, and tender.” She wrote her very first story at the age of seven—it starred four female “mystery-solvers” and a villain in a gorilla suit, and remains unfinished to this day.

Since then, she’s grown up (reluctantly), earned a bachelor’s of music in piano performance, taught approximately one billion piano lessons, and written nine novels, many of them during National Novel Writing Month.

Joanna hails from Mesa, Arizona, where she lives with her dear husband and son, a rascally feline, and an enormous grand piano. When she’s not writing, she’s trying to convince her students that Bach is actually awesome, or plotting her escape from the desert. She loves good music, thick books, loose-leaf tea, rainstorms, and staring out windows. One day, she aspires to own an old Victorian house with creaky wooden floors and a tower (for writing in, of course!).