Escape by Barbara Delinsky (Giveaway too!)

Jacket Design
by John Fontana
Jacket Photography
by Max Yankus

Doubleday
A Division of Random House
ISBN-10: 0385532725
ISBN-13: 978-0385532723

Have you ever felt like running away and leaving everything behind? The pressures are just too much for you to handle and all you want to do is ESCAPE?

That's what Emily Aulenbach, a successful lawyer, married to a successful author, living in Manhattan feels.  She spends her days in a cubicle listening to victims on the phone of tainted bottle water and she is on the bottler'side.  She dreamed of finishing law school and defending victims, this is so not what she wanted.

Her sister is depending on her to plan a huge party for their mother's birthday.  Her husband, James, it so caught up with work, trying to become a partner, that their marriage is crumbling. The only true connections she makes everyday are with her BlackBerry, her laptop and her watch. Is this anyway to live?

Emily was talking to a woman on the phone who had been drinking the bottled water and who had already suffered a miscarriage only to find the baby she is now carrying in not developing correctly broke Emily's heart. She decides she just can't do this anymore.  She leaves work, goes home, packs a bag and takes off, leaving her watch and laptop behind.  With no real plan she has a few false starts but ends up in a the small New Hampshire town where she spent one fabulous summer.  She reconnects with a college friend and starts to try to figure out where she wants to go from here.  This is the place to relax and think.  The perfect place to escape or is it?

Yes, this is a really good  book to "escape into".  The past Emily has in this town is very interesting but I don't want to give away too much.  I do think the author didn't take this part of the story far enough or fully develop the key characters. There seemed to be a lot of repetition and it it didn't flow effortlessly in a few places as her other books do. 

The book does address a very real problem though. Our lives seem to run in overdrive everyday. Relationships are tested and tested again. With the development in all this wonderful technology we really have to work at stepping away from it.  Take a day for ourselves and our families and let the cell phone go to voice mail. Ignore the emails until the next real work day. Take a day to live technology free.  When is the last time you have done that? Really escaped from the hustle and bustle of  everyday life.  

The message is really good, the story is entertaining but there are a few bumps along the way. In the end I do give this book 4 stars because underneath it all there is a love story that really is quite strong.  You just need to wait for the characters to catch up with what you can already see as the reader.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Doubleday. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. Receiving a complimentary copy in no way reflected my review of this book. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.” 

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Thanks to the wonderful people at Doubleday 

I have 2 copies of this book to giveaway!

Books will be sent directly from the publisher.

Followers will receive 2 bonus entries 

for each way they follow!

U.S. Residents Only

Contest will end September 1 at 11:59 p.m. CST