The Austen Escape

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The Austen Escape
Katherine Reay
Thomas Nelson

After years of following her best friend’s lead, Mary Davies finds a whimsical trip back to Austen’s Regency England paves the way towards a new future.

Mary Davies lives and works in Austin, Texas, as an industrial engineer. She has an orderly and productive life, a job and colleagues that she enjoys—particularly a certain adorable, intelligent, and hilarious consultant. But something is missing for Mary. When her estranged and emotionally fragile childhood friend Isabel Dwyer offers Mary a two-week stay in a gorgeous manor house in Bath, Mary reluctantly agrees to come along, in hopes that the holiday will shake up her quiet life in just the right ways. But Mary gets more than she bargained for when Isabel loses her memory and fully believes that she lives in Regency England. Mary becomes dependent on a household of strangers to take care of Isabel until she wakes up.

With Mary in charge and surrounded by new friends, Isabel rests and enjoys the leisure of a Regency lady. But life gets even more complicated when Mary makes the discovery that her life and Isabel’s have intersected in more ways that she knew, and she finds herself caught between who Isabel was, who she seems to be, and the man who stands between them. Outings are undertaken, misunderstandings play out, and dancing ensues as this triangle works out their lives and hearts among a company of clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation.

     Katherine Reay is one of the few authors of contemporary fiction who I read regularly. I've read all of her books save one, so I'm pretty familiar with her writing style, and I always enjoy the allusions she makes to literature that I happen to be personally fond of.

     Yet I think this novel may be my least favorite of hers. The focus of the book is Mary's relationship with her childhood friend, Isabel, a friendship that's both unusual and painfully familiar. I think most of us, at one time or another, have gone through similar relationships that are such a mixed bag that sometimes you're not sure whether it's toxic or redeemable. Reay isn't timid about delving into all facets of human feelings and emotions, even the ones that seem to contradict others. Yet, despite that messily realistic portrayal, the plot stretches credibility for me in a lot of ways- not enough for it to be a problem for some readers, but it didn't work for me. In addition, I couldn't help but feel as though the narrative had gaps, and this time, the literature mentions didn't always rub me the right way. (Also, while I'd still generally label this a clean read, the lifestyle of the characters won't be to every Christian's standard. Most Christian novels don't have the characters hanging out for drinks at a bar, for example.)

     Overall, it wasn't a novel I felt particularly invested in, a fact perhaps best illustrated by the fact that it took me a heck of a long time to read. There are plenty of really positive reviews for this one, so I know it connected with some readers; it just didn't work for me.

I recieved this book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review.

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