The grander the house. The darker the secrets.

From bestselling author Ruth Kelly, The Escape is an electrifying winter read for fans of Lisa Jewell and Sarah Pearse.

The Perfect Escape

When struggling influencer couple Adele and Jack post a crowdfunding video online, they’re amazed when a mysterious benefactor offers to buy them an idyllic 17th century French château. It’s the lifeline they need to leave all their troubles behind and patch up their relationship after a rocky period.

The Influencer

For Adele, it’s a dream come true. She will post videos from the fairy tale setting, renovating the grand building as thousands of online subscribers follow their journey. But the château is not all it seems and the local community is far from welcoming.

The Sister

Then Adele’s videos suddenly stop. Her sister Erin travels to France to make sure she’s okay but the couple have vanished. Between the obsession of Adele’s fans, the unsettling history of the building and the claustrophobic secrecy of the nearby town, Erin must unravel the shocking truth behind why the anonymous investor gifted Adele and Jack their dream home in the first place . . .

Review:

Dark, ominous, and unnerving!

The Escape is an intense, well-crafted tale that takes us into the life of Erin, a young woman who, after her social media influencer sister vanishes without a trace, travels to France to uncover what truly happened inside the run-down French chateau she was gifted to renovate by a mysterious benefactor.

The writing is sharp and menacing. The characters are self-involved, adventurous, and exposed. And the plot is an intricate, tension-filled tall full of mischief, mayhem, secrets, deception, manipulation, shocking revelations, lies, indulgence, depravity, violence, and murder.

Overall, The Escape is a sinister, atmospheric, twisty whodunit by Kelly that does a splendid job of highlighting just how vulnerable and susceptible technology and social media makes us and reminds us just how far some people are willing to go to protect the ability to keep their deviant proclivities consistently available and hidden from normal society.

This novel is available now.

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