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    Escape
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    Escape
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    Escape
    Audiobook12 hours

    Escape

    Written by Barbara Delinsky

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    3/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    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.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJul 5, 2011
    ISBN9780307735140
    Unavailable
    Escape
    Author

    Barbara Delinsky

    Barbara Delinsky grew up in suburban Boston, US. A master of emotional intensity, she touches the minds and hearts of her readers with intricately woven stories of domestic drama and relationships. Her books regularly appear on the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, and USA Today Bestseller Lists.

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    Reviews for Escape

    3/5

    118 ratings16 reviews

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    • 2/5
      Okay, I tried so hard to finish reading this book but I just can't. So I gave up...I have other books I borrowed from the library that I need to read.
    • 2/5
      "Great book - I listened on audio - escaping corporate america can lead to passions of the heart"
    • 5/5
      This was more about self-discovery than romance but a very absorbing story with an exciting ending. Many times it had me thinking about my own life values and priorities. After a really bad day, overworked attorney Emily packs a bag and takes off leaving a brief note for her attorney husband James.
    • 2/5
      First, a note on the narrator. I listened to this as a book on tape (my preferred reading method with a grabby toddler). Can someone please tell her that everyone who lives in New England does NOT sound like a bad Kennedy imitation?

      I have loved Barbara Delinsky for years. She was an auto buy starting in the 1980s when she wrote romance. As I type this, all of her Harlequin books and her first single-titles are on my keeper shelf, yellow and dog eared. She was one of the first authors I read who made me feel something when she wrote.

      The last few books, however, have not been for me. I have a friend, a former lawyer like myself, who does not read books with characters who are lawyers (written by non lawyers) because inaccuracies pull her out of the moment. I don't have such a policy and think that some lawyer characters can be super well written - so I don't discriminate.

      Halfway through this book, I wish I did. The main character, Emily, started out believably for me. Ivy League lawyer hates life after ten years. I get that. I've been there and most of my friends have as well. At that point we either get out or change what we're doing. I get the aspiration and ambition. I get the debt while keeping up 'appearances.' I get the urge to 'run away from it all.' But after that, Emily (and James for that matter) lost me.

      Their jobs were too unrealistic (she never did settle on what kind of law they really practiced). Let me just say, if you're on headphones all day you're not meeting too many criminals. If James was plea bargaining, then the kind of work hours he had would be different, and the pressure would be different.

      And leaving? Emily starts out talking about maxed out credit cards, but blithely quits her job. No foreclosure on the horizon? No creditors calling? I didn't get it.

      The other thing that got me, all that communing with coyotes. All this coyote allegory seems to be a book trend, like writing in the first person is a trend. I live near coyotes and they're not that mysterious. They're just wild dogs, really. Is there any meaning in that?

      I wanted more. More depth, better characterization, a less sensational side story. Alas it wasn't to be.
    • 5/5
      Escape by Barbara DelinskyShe is a lawyer and her husband as well.The case is the bottled water. Many are sick from the water and she is collecting data from all those who are sick. Eagle River is the company and the woman she's talking to has had miscarriages and they could be related.She had a lot going on in her life, $300 bridesmaid gown, she was to do her mother's 60 birthday party, in the works to get pregnant and the case, it was just overbearing. to the point where she just took off. She had had enough, of everything.She ends up in NH, at her best friends Vicky's inn. She had to reunite with her as their years have slipped by. They were last all together when Jude was there. He was due at Belle Valley also. He was the rebel and did what he wanted, and swayed others to do that...He has a cabin in the woods and had a calling to they coyotes and sick and hurt animals. They coyotes were no longer there, ever since Jude left.The animal refuge heals many others who come to volunteer their time.
    • 5/5
      Can you imagine spending a decade of your life, becoming a success in your chosen field, only to realize you hate your life? That you have achieved your goals, but your desires have changed? That your work responsibilities have become overwhelming? What would you do? If you were Emily Aulenbach, you simply, quietly, decide you’d had enough, and walk away from your job, from your husband, from your home. And drive. Emily finds herself at the bed and breakfast of an old college friend, who gives her the time and space Emily needs to heal and some thoughtful advice along with some tasty pastries. Emily loves the law but not the lawyer she and her husband have become. Barbara Delinsky has given us some food for thought in this fascinating tale. With engaging characters and interesting subplots, you may find yourself feeling more than just a causal connection to what Emily and her husband are experiencing.
    • 4/5
      Sitting in her cubicle at a large New York law firm, Emily Aulenbach realizes that at age 32 her life doesn’t begin to resemble the dreams she once held. Instead of representing the victims of corporate abuse, she is on the side of the corporation. She no longer connects with her workaholic husband, James. She has been unable to get pregnant. And then she receives a card from her former lover, Jude, which said he is heading back to his hometown in New Hampshire.On impulse, Emily leaves work, packs a bag and drives her husband’s BMW out of New York. She feels desperate to get away until she can think things through and find herself again. Eventually she ends up in a small town in the mountains of New Hampshire and at the B&B run by her best friend from college, and Jude’s sister.I could relate to Emily in this story. There have been times in my life where I’ve dreamed of getting into my car and just driving until I arrive “there”.
    • 5/5
      I read this is one day. Escape - I think it's what we all want at one time or another in the hustle and bustle of the crazy lives we lead.
    • 3/5
      This story is more than chick lit.as ther is good charachter development and alittle suspense. Emily who is an attorney in New York gets fed up with the crporate world and runs away. She needs to find out who she iis and what she wants in lifeand runs to an old friend. After much soul searching she and her husband find one another again amidst helping a friend in a legal battle.
    • 4/5
      This is a chick lit story with a lot more meat than fluff. There is a feisty heroine, a super stud (as my friend Becky described him) husband, and equally dashing and dangerous former lover, and an early mid-life crisis. Emily, a young up and coming lawyer who has had it with money grabbing corporate antics, snaps one morning, walks out of her office, and doesn't look back. In addition to the story of her quest for meaning, Delinsky even builds a great deal of suspense with a well plotted mystery (no murder, just basic ugly cheating, embezzleing and kidnapping!)which increases the suspense of the story and adds to the relationship issues.It was much more enjoyable than I expected. Well written, great character development and motivation, and a charming story. It's still going to fall under the chick-lit heading---I don't see too many men being able to relate well to it-- but it's not brain candy. There's definite intellectual nutritional value.I especially enjoyed it in audio. The New England accents are quite authentic, although they may in fact be hard to understand for those not familiar with the many different dialects of Yankee. All in all though, Barbara Delinsky has certainly landed on my list of authors to watch for.
    • 4/5
      Who hasn't thought about tossing everything and just running away? This story starts out simply enough with a Emily, a corporate lawyer in New York, realizing her life isn't what she thought it would be. She loves her husband and like being a lawyer, but finds herself more on the side of those she is supposed to be defending her client against. Emily decides she has had enough and simply walks out--on everything. She ends up driving until she discovers herself in a familiar setting where her best friend from college, Vicky Bell, lives and runs a bed and breakfast. She settles into a routine, helping Vicky out and volunteering at an animal shelter.There the story becomes a legal drama and something happens that I wasn't expecting. Yes, I did expect her to meet Jude, the guy who broke her heart and Vicky's brother, but I never expected the part where she comes to the defense of the B&B's baker, Lee. This is where the story really goes into legal thriller as she helps Lee defend herself against evil relatives in order to keep an inheritance. There were parts of the book where I though the plot was not going anywhere and then this drama unfolds and becomes a page turner. The last part of the book is worth sticking around for. Overall, a good summer read with a bit of drama and romance.
    • 4/5
      Emily is a lawyer in NYC living with her husband in a very stressed life, feeling frustrated and unfulfilled. One day she simply walks out of her office and doesn't go back. This book details what happens when she drops out of her old life, taking her back to the scene of an earlier important time, a small town, friends, an exciting man.
    • 3/5
      I don't know what it was, I just couldn't really get into this book. It was interesting enough about a lawyer who drops everything and leaves because she hates her job so much, but it was boring at times. Some parts were all just what Emily was thinking and I kind of got tired of her thinking so much. Maybe I'm just too young for this book because I didn't really connect with Emily all that well. James was probably my favorite character because he was a good guy and the kind of husband everyone wants. My favorite part though was the animal shelter part because I used to volunteer at a cat shelter, so I know how she felt there, but other than that I wasn't all that interested. The beginning was boring once Emily left New York and I feel like this book didn't need to be as long as it was. Sometimes I felt like the author was going on and on about the case Emily and James were working on and I was just bored with it.I liked Emily's story and how she hated the life she worked so hard to get, but the details of it weren't all that interesting. Escape was a pretty good book, I just don't think that it was for me.
    • 2/5
      This book did not seem to be up to Delinsky's usual good standards. It was very slow in places and just not the good reading that she usually provides. Having read everything she has written this book was disappointing.
    • 1/5
      The idea of "escaping" your life to contemplate if you made the right choices is a credible one. However, the main character was self-indulgent and not very likable and the story line was contrived. She walks out on her life - husband, job, friends - to determine if she made the right choices in her life. Her boss holds her job. Her husband waits. Friends, according to her, don't really care because those weren't true friends. An old friend takes her in no questions asked even though she walked away years ago and kept no contact. Not likely that all of those things would quite work out in that way.I have read and enjoyed other books by Barbara Delinsky but not this one.
    • 3/5
      Just OK - I llike the story line of escaping - that was credible but some of the story of very contrived feeling.