The Escape Artist [Large Print]

This is another amazing story from Diane Chamberlain. This time she takes a young womans life which is turned upside and brings it right side up only turn it around and around again. The ride was great, I loved this book.

The Escape Artist was my third book by Chamberlain and a very quick read. I live in the Annapolis area, which made the book even more interesting to me, as Chamberlain describes the scenes downtown near the waterfront. This is a story of a Susanna, a single mother's fight for her only child as she looses custody to her ex-husband and his new, child hungry, unable-to-bear-children wife. Unfortunately, the theme is all too relevant today in our society, with courts awarding custody not to the parent who can provide the most loving, stable, and balanced home, but instead to the parent to has the most money and can "buy" the child. I could relate to Susanna totally and could not condone her actions, nor can any other mother reading this book! The reader is able to feel her terror and fear as she formulates her plan and carries it out. Yet it is in the day-to-day activities, in which we feel Susanna's fear and her loss of Linc. Susanna sacrifices her own happiness and her chance for love for her only child.This book was similar to the other Chamberlain books I have read, in that there were a lot of little subplots going on, each a mystery in themselves!! I thought that the characters showed depth, emotion, and portrayed a very real believable element in the plot. Chamberlain writes of very strong female characters, who seem to push out of their paradigms and prove to themselves that they are capable, despite what family and society seems to say about them.This book will keep you guessing to the very end and the ending once again, will take the reader completely back! I love the way Chamberlain completely fools the reader at the end, when the reader thinks they have it all figured out!! It is not what it appears to be!Another good story from Chamberlain!

Ms. Chamberlain writes a beautifully, poignant story of one woman's journey to overcome adversity. One cannot help but feel compassion and support for the main character, Susanna as she's always looking over her shoulder wondering if and when law enforcement will find her; as well as her inner, personal struggle in becoming a strong, self-reliant, woman, especially at the climatic end of the story.

Rarely does one read a book that "stays" with you. This was one such book for me. Ms. Chamberlain writes a beautifully, poignant story of one woman's journey to overcome adversity. One cannot help but feel compassion and support for the main character, Susanna as she's always looking over her shoulder wondering if and when law enforcement will find her; as well as her inner, personal struggle in becoming a strong, self-reliant, woman, especially at the climatic end of the story.

THE ESCAPE ARTIST Diane Chamberlain HarperCollins, Mar 1997, $24.00, 336 pp.