Originally published: 3 February 2022

Author: Lean Konen

Published by: Michael Joseph

Genre: Thriller

Length: 384 pages

Listening Dates: 30 January-3 February 2022

When her husband Harry walks out after just six months, a girls’ weekend away with two friends seems like just what Sam needs.

But they aren’t even halfway to their destination when things start to go wrong: car trouble that just happens to leave them stranded in the town where Harry lives.

And that’s only the beginning.

Because there are three things Sam doesn’t yet know:

One of her friends is lying about why they’re there.

One is lying about who she is.

And one of them will never make it home . . .

Sam, Margaret and Diana are three friends in their 30s who have bonded over men troubles. Sam’s husband Harry has walked out on her leaving her broken hearted after just 6 months of marriage. Margaret is in the process of leaving her husband Lars who is an alcoholic and Diana is divorced from her controlling husband Brandon. They decide to take a girly trip away to the mountains, to enjoy lazing around in a hot tub and drinking wine while taking their minds off their men troubles.

But when they have car trouble they end up stranded in a small town called Catskill. Booking accommodation for the night, the ladies decide they may as well go out. Sam immediately realises that this is the place that Harry lives now and they meet in the bar and go outside and end up having sex. Meanwhile Margaret has met a local man Alex and they start chatting before kissing and Diana is outside smoking.

Sam gets very drunk so Margaret and Alex take her back to their rental but it is not until the next morning they realise that Diana didn’t come home. They can’t reach her on her phone and the police aren’t that interested, assuming she went home with a man, but it soon becomes apparent something terrible has happened…

I immediately felt a connection to these women – the idea of a weekend away drinking wine with my girlfriends is something I long for! We hear in alternating chapters from both Sam and Margaret as they struggle to make sense of what happened to Diana. The story gradually unfolds as we find out more about the women and their relationships which are much more complicated than we are initially led to believe.

The Perfect Escape is a real page turner – I always think the best books are the ones that you long to pick up even if you just have 5 minutes spare, just to see what happens next and this book was certainly like that for me! I was constantly shocked by the twists and turns and I didn’t see the final twist coming at all! A tight plot with a satisfying conclusion, The Perfect Escape is the perfect books for thriller lovers!

Thank you to Kallie for sending me a proof copy of the book. Check out the rest of the blog tour below:

About the author:

Leah Konen is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she studied journalism and English literature. She lives in Brooklyn and Saugerties, NY, with her husband and their dog, Farley.

Twitter – https://twitter.com/LeahKonen
Website: https://www.leahkonen.com/