Escape [Hardcover]

Barbara Delinsky (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2011

In her luminous new novel, Barbara Delinsky explores every woman’s desire to abandon the endless obligations of work and marriage—and the idea that the most passionate romance can be found with the person you know best.

Emily Aulenbach is thirty, a lawyer married to a lawyer, working in Manhattan. An idealist, she had once dreamed of representing victims of corporate abuse, but she spends her days in a cubicle talking on the phone with vic­tims of tainted bottled water—and she is on the bottler’s side.

And it isn’t only work. It’s her sister, her friends, even her husband, Tim, with whom she doesn’t connect the way she used to. She doesn’t connect to much in her life, period, with the exception of three things—her computer, her BlackBerry, and her watch.

Acting on impulse, Emily leaves work early one day, goes home, packs her bag, and takes off. Groping toward the future, uncharacteristically following her gut rather than her mind, she heads north toward a New Hampshire town tucked between mountains. She knows this town. During her college years, she spent a watershed summer here. Painful as it is to return, she knows that if she is to right her life, she has to start here.

Editorial Reviews

Review

PRAISE FOR ESCAPE:

"Delinsky nails it in her trademark latest, a captivating and moving story about a woman who's had enough of her life and wants a fresh start. . . . [She] keeps the story moving with some nice twists on a familiar plot, rich characterizations, and real-feeling dilemmas that will keep readers hooked."—Publishers Weekly

"Escape is another appealing page-turner from a writer who continues to earn her bestseller status."—Bookreporter.com

PRAISE FOR NOT MY DAUGHTER:

“A topical tale that resonates with timeless emotion.” —People, 3½ stars

“Delinsky proves once again why she’s a perennial best-seller with this thought-provoking tale . . . Timely, fresh, and true-to-life.” —Publishers Weekly

About the Author

BARBARA DELINSKY has more than thirty million copies of her books in print. She lives with her fam­ily in New England.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (July 5, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385532725
• ISBN-13: 978-0385532723
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 1.3 x 9.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (53 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #43,626 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Barbara Delinsky, author of ESCAPE (2011), NOT MY DAUGHTER (2010), WHILE MY SISTER SLEEPS (2009), THE SECRET BETWEEN US (2008), and FAMILY TREE (2007), has written more than twenty bestselling novels with over thirty million copies in print. She has been published in twenty languages worldwide. Barbara's fiction centers upon everyday families facing not-so-everyday challenges. She is particularly drawn to exploring themes of motherhood, marriage, sibling rivalry, and friendship in her novels.

A lifelong New Englander, Barbara earned a B.A. in Psychology at Tufts University and an M.A. in Sociology at Boston College. As a breast cancer survivor who lost her mother to the disease when she was only eight, Barbara compiled the non-fiction book Uplift: Secrets From the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors, a handbook of practical tips and upbeat anecdotes. She donates her proceeds from the sale of this book to her charitable foundation, which funds an ongoing research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Barbara enjoys knitting, photography, and cats. She also loves to interact with her readers through her website at www.barbaradelinsky.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bdelinsky, and on Twitter as @BarbaraDelinsky.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 53 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible, July 9, 2011

By 

Jan Fortuno "Jan" (Arizona) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Escape (Kindle Edition)

Who hasn't wanted to escape our "techno" world? I know I have, and this books helps me do that, even though I realized that I wasn't totally escaping because I was reading it on my Kindle. Emily realizes one day that she is so burned out with work and life in general that she needs to escape. She ends up spending time with an old friend and during this time reconnects with herself and parts of her life that were very good. I particularly enjoyed the parts about communicating with the coyote and her pups. I love that the author doesn't make everything easy at the beginning, that there is a struggle to get James on the same path as Emily. I loved every minute of this book and wanted to scream "NOOOOOOO" when it was ending. I wanted to continue to escape. Hope everyone enjoys this book as much as I did. Thank you Barbara for taking me away for a few hours with this book.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Could you walk away from the perfect life you thought you had created?, July 11, 2011

By 

Mary J. Gramlich "The Reading Reviewer" (St. Louis, MO) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Escape (Hardcover)

Emily can't take another day of answering the phone, sitting in her cubicle, worrying about whether she is doing the right thing by her clients or if the dream she has been chasing has crumbled in her hands. She loves her husband but suspects he may be cheating on her, likes being a lawyer, but hates the type she is practicing and adores her parents but is tired of worrying that she is a disappointment to them.

One day she decides she has had enough and drives away in her husband's car to figure out if the past is what is stopping her from loving the present and unable to work on a future. Emily reconnects with her college friend, which is yet another relationship she stopped nurturing and finds she cannot live without. But going back to a place that provided peace in the past and calm during the storm may turn out to be a nightmare if the reason she left this little slice of heaven shows up. Everyone has a secret they hold close to their heart and this one broke Emily's heart and she is not looking to repeat any mistakes when the man she is married to has fulfilled her expectations but keeping this secret from her husband is as sinful as the ones she is accusing him of.

At some point Emily is going to have to face her husband and family, which is not going to be easy. She has to tell them why she ran away but still can't decide when she will be home or how she is going to mesh the life she wants with the life she has and still be able to afford to have a baby.

The reward for Emily is the joy she receives every time she walks into The Rescue and sees all the animals that have faced much pain and misery than working too many hours and not getting enough sleep.

Life is never the problem it is living the life that does you in. I bought this book with no idea what it was about because any Barbara Delinsky is a must buy on my list and never question that it will be great. However, this particulate book comes in a time when my life is a mess and what I want more than anything is to go someplace that will stop the craziness and calm my stress. The main character is like every other woman who does not want to throw the life she has away, she wants to make it work and just cannot figure out how. Her husband has his ideas, her parents another and work is what you do to pay for the life you have. This story will hit everyone that reads it regardless of your age because at some point we all want to hit the button that gets us off the bus and lets us walk for a while.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not as good as her earlier works...., August 6, 2011

By 

R. Collins (Kings Mtn, NC) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Escape (Hardcover)

I have been a big fan of Barbara Delinsky for years but I've been very disappointed in her last 5 or 6 books. I'm not sure what has changed. My favorites were from years ago - A Woman Betrayed, Together Alone, The Passions of Chelsea Kane, More Than Friends.

Maybe with Escape it's the fact that it's written in first person, which I NEVER tend to like. Others may not mind but I feel with first person narratives, we never get an insight into the other characters. I would have liked to be in James' mind when Emily just "escaped'' one Friday and turned off her phone and in Vicki Bell's when Emily showed up on her doorstep after years of not speaking to her. Other characters' perspectives would have really enriched the book.

The best parts of the book for me were when Emily was at The Refuge caring for the animals. Just a small part of the plot but it evoked more emotion in me than the passages between our heroine and her husband.

I would recommend readers get this from their library rather than pay full price for it.