British influencer Adele posts a crowdfunding video online asking her followers to help fund her dream to purchase a beautiful old chateau in France. Amidst all the hateful comments about how selfish and deluded she is for the ask, Adele also receives an email: a wealthy and intensely private philanthropist wants to buy the chateau for her and her partner, Jack.
The catch? They cannot bring any furniture of their own, nor make any changes to the building. They cannot have guests over, much less move in Adele’s mom, who has cancer. They must also agree to let the unknown benefactor come over whenever they desire. In return, the deed to the chateau will be in Adele and Jack’s name within the day, the philanthropist will send them cash for living expenses, and they’ll even have a gardener to help with caring for the grounds.
Personally, I couldn’t do it. I would hate for anyone to have that much control over my home and my life. But Jack is unemployed, and Adele’s boss fired her after interpreting the crowdfunding video as Adele intending to leave. So Adele and Jack decide to take the offer and go for their dream life. Four months later, a few days after New Year, Adele’s sister Erin comes to the chateau to tell Adele to come back home; their mom’s condition has worsened, and her dying wish is to see Adele one final time. Except that neither Adele nor Jack is at the chateau, nor answering their phones. And when Erin asks the people in town, no one seems to want to help.
The Escape starts off really strong. I love the dual narrative structure: Erin’s chapters are set in the present day, with Erin trying to retrace events leading up to the last time she heard from Adele, a texted heart emoji on New Year’s Eve. And Adele’s chapters are in the months leading up to New Year’s, detailing the creepy vibes she keeps feeling at the chateau, the overall unfriendliness of the people in the nearby town, and increasing tensions in her and Jack’s relationship. The first half of the book was fantastic! Lots of mystery, lots of spooky vibes, and lots of curiosity about what on earth is actually going on with that chateau.
Unfortunately, the story turned kinda meh for me in the second half. We do find out big reveals about the mysterious benefactor and their interest in the chateau, and it’s ridiculously over-the-top and dramatic. I usually like drama, and I’m not averse to a little pulp in my fiction, but this was just so pulpy yet played so straight that it was a struggle to maintain my suspension of disbelief. It’s tough to describe without going into spoilers, so I’ll just say it gets dark, it involves minors, and based on the descriptions in some scenes, some non-consensual sadism. Torture, conspiracies, and people in power all play a part. And when Erin’s investigation puts her personal safety at risk, voyeurism plays a role in how the story’s denouement eventually plays out.
It’s so utterly over-the-top and ridiculous that I can easily imagine Daniel Craig’s Benoit Blanc’s utterly bewildered expression in trying to make sense of it all. Yet Ruth Kelly writes the whole thing with such earnest seriousness that you can’t quite tell if you’re expected to take this as seriously as she and her characters are.
Still, I had managed to suspend my disbelief to that point, and I was willing to stay with the author all the way to the end. But then came another reveal about Adele’s whereabouts, and honestly, that was just a reveal too many. I’ll acknowledge that the author did set up this reveal earlier in the novel; she was hardly subtle about it, and if I hadn’t been so distracted by all the other stuff going on, I may have critiqued it for being too obvious. But as it is, my response is more one of disbelief that even after everything else, she felt the need to tack on yet another dramatic plot beat to the story.
The epilogue was just full-on evil villain cackle level chef’s kiss of an ending. If this book were adapted for a movie, it will probably become a cult classic with multiple sequels.
That being said, I do think the touch of romance for Erin was cute, and I do find the resolution of the family story to be heartwarming. And as critical as I was of how the story turned out, I was entertained by it, and had a pretty fun time overall in reading it.
+
Thank you to Publishers Group Canada for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Literary Treats 