The Escape
The Richard & Judy Winter Book Club Thriller
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3.7 • 67 Ratings
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- £3.99
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- £3.99
Publisher Description
'Atmospheric and page-turning, The Escape is this winter’s The Hunting Party' – Veronica Henry
From bestselling author Ruth Kelly, The Escape is an electrifying thriller of influencers, secrets and lies set in a grand mansion in rural France. Perfect for fans of Lisa Jewell and Sarah Pearse.
The Perfect Offer
When struggling influencer couple Adele and Jack post a crowdfunding video online, they’re amazed when a mysterious benefactor offers to buy them a crumbling French chateau. It’s the lifeline they need to leave all their troubles behind.
The Perfect Dream
For Adele, it’s a dream come true. She will post videos of the renovation as thousands of online subscribers follow their journey. But the chateau is not all it seems and the local community is far from welcoming.
The Perfect Nightmare
Then Adele’s videos suddenly stop. Her sister Erin visits to make sure she’s OK, but the couple have vanished. Between the obsession of Adele’s fans and the claustrophobic secrecy of the nearby town, Erin must unravel the shocking truth behind the couple’s disappearance . . .
'A deliciously dark look at the world of influencers set against the backdrop of a glamorous French chateau - tense and shocking' – Catherine Cooper, author of The Chalet
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Set predominantly in a mysterious French chateau, seasoned ghostwriter Ruth Kelly’s second novel takes an eerie, foreboding atmosphere befitting a traditional thriller and gives it a modern twist: the chateau is lived in by a (now missing) influencer who made a name for herself by attempting to crowdfund her ownership of the sprawling house. Fans of Lisa Jewell will love Kelly’s writing, which is flawlessly paced and filled with a cast of dodgy characters, any of whom could be behind the influencer’s disappearance. In 2023, becoming the unsuspecting target of a barrage of online vitriol ranks among most people’s biggest fears and The Escape reminds us of the dangers of inviting strangers on the internet into your business. Told from the perspective of the influencer, Adele, and her sister Erin, The Escape is packed with twists and cliffhangers, building up to a shocking and thoroughly satisfying ending.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Kelly (The Villa) offers a limp thriller about a young woman's attempts to find her missing sister. The action kicks off with influencer Adele Davenport, who's recently decamped to France, shooting an entry for her semi-popular renovation vlog. She concludes the recording by admitting to her viewers that she's afraid "something really bad is about to happen to her." Two weeks later, Adele's older sister, Erin, arrives in France with the news that their mother's cancer is in its final stages. When Erin shows up to the property Adele and her boyfriend, Jack, were renovating, however, they are nowhere to be found. Kelly then flashes back to when Adele posted a plea to her followers: she wanted help purchasing a 17th-century Burgundy chateau she found online, worth over one million euros, so she could renovate it, document the renovation, and boost her falling engagement numbers. Her GoFundMe campaign to raise the money yielded mostly hostility until a lawyer reached out to say that her "wealthy philanthropist" client would gift the property to Adele and Jack under some strict conditions, including an NDA and a no-guest policy. They accept the offer, and Kelly alternates the details of their increasingly fraught renovation—which faces challenges from neighbors in addition to standard-issue home renovation problems—with Erin's efforts to determine what happened to her sister. Kelly fails to give her characters much dimension, and wrings only minimal suspense out of her intriguing premise. This disappoints.
Customer Reviews
Brilliant but….
Honestly, it was a very interesting book, the mystery was unexpected and the twists were well developed. I'll try to word this in a way without spoiling it, but the ending seemed rushed and the perpetrator felt like a decision that was last minute and decided when the book was already half-written because there was barely any signs or hits that they were the main stalker.
Though overall, an addictive book, I found myself struggling to put it down and ended up reading the whole thing in less than a week.
Loved it!
Full of twists and turns, keeping you guessing all the way through. Great book, dark at times but couldn’t put the book down.
Meh
This book was an ok read, I was quite enjoying it to start with but as I went on I felt it started dragging a bit and the twists felt too exaggerated. I was disappointed with the ending too as I thought the epilogue was going to reveal some major twist but it felt very random and unnecessary.