I have enjoyed every one of Katherine Reay's books and she continues her amazing style of writing in The Austen Escape.

This book is about Mary, a single lady who works long and hard at her job. She has close friends, a set routine, and a crush on a co-worker that never amounts to anything. An old friends invites her to Bath, England for a two week vacation to live as a regency lady.

This trip becomes an eye opening experience for Mary in many ways. By the end of the book, Mary feels she has finally found herself and happiness.

Katherine Reay has the ability to make the reader feel like she is there in the story. Her characters are rich and likable. I felt real emotion for the troubles Mary and Isabel faced. An all-round great book!

This is a really fun read for anyone well acquainted with Jane Austen's novels. It felt a bit like Austenland by Shannon Hale, but not quite as commical. I actually liked this one better! I thought it was fun how the characters escaped into a regency world and picked characters from the novels to "be". Each ended up identifing as a character with attributes like theirs. I loved seeing each of the novels alluded to through character or events.
Mary was a very interesting character and one that I could never actually pinpoint as Elizabeth, Anne, Eleanor, or Catherine. There were aspects of each in her and at times she exhibits characteristics of each of them. I loved that Nathan picked Henry Tilney, and not only because Mary choose be Catherine. Nathan too could have been Darcy or Wentworth but he picked my personal favorite.

My only wish would have had been to have more of the year Nathan and Mary spent working together before the Austen Escape. I was left wanting to see more and have more filled in. I guess that is a good thing. I was caught up enough in the story to wish for more.

Katherine does it again - spins a tale worthy of Jane Austen. Best friends spend two weeks in Bath, cosplaying and researching the world of Austen. Both women have issues to work through and things come to a head while on vacation. An engaging read for anyone who is a fan of regency-inspired romance.

A well written and fun read. Great storyline.

"When there are serious matters to discuss, Austen women walk. And it has the side benefit of keeping our figures so light and pleasing."


I have to admit I have been getting a little tired of Austen everything. So many updates. So many re-imaginings--- But, if anyone can do Austen, Reay can. Especially because she doesn't just transpose a story into a new setting, she interweaves a new story with new characters, nuances and worlds with the timeless sensibility and humour of Jane Austen. Even while you are not reading ye olde "Austen Update" that merely parallels Austen heroes and heroines in a modern setting, you are being confronted by an invigorated re-visitation of Austen's wisdom. When this strikes you, midway through the book, you recognize that Reay is far smarter than you initially could have thought. This is not just a nod to Austen, this is a thesis ABOUT Austen (specifically her relationship with Bath and her inter-textual connections about love, wisdom and modern relationships) told in prosaic form.

It's not often that fiction is supplanted with such an academic tenet; but that is what makes Reay one of my favourite writers. With all of her Austen and Bronte and Weber infused prose, she makes a statement about the books she pays homage to. It is this added layer that asserts her as one of the finest contemporary voices.

But while I get all stodgily English major-y on you, what makes Reay a must-read is her natural accessibility. While this certainly offers a grand wink and nudge to fans of Austen's work on a deeper level, so it is a keen and sparkly colourful carousel of characters transplanted into a Regency-modern hybrid in present-day Bath.


Mary Davies is a quiet engineer who works for WATT, a startup in Austin, Texas. Constulant Nathan is one of the brightest parts of her day. While she works to gauge disappointment that her latest optical project Golightly ( yes, THAT is Holly Golightly) didn't take off, she assembles wire animals at her desk and works to decipher the extra attentions Nate gives to her. Work complications and a new manager, however, inspire her to accept her life-long friend Isabel's invitation for a vacation at an Austen-themed estate near Bath. Deciding to escape the everyday and clear her head, she follows Isabel into a world of costumes and balls, of traditional manners and eccentric participants who acquire a personage from the books for their stay.

But Isabel is not as balanced as she seems and her domineering friend soon begins to show a remarkable mental instability, actually thinking she is Emma Woodhouse and speaking in the sequences and memories of Austen's canon. While Mary struggles to reach her friend, she discovers Isabel's connection to Nathan, who has sparked her life for so long it has flickered into a kind of unending flame. Hurt and confused---mostly by Nathan's own arrival at the estate--- Mary navigates the map of herself while amidst a fresh and inviting, humorous and whimsical world patronized by " clever, well-informed people who have a great deal of conversation."
Human relations and fallacy, the map of the human mind, the friction between literature and art chafing against science and logic and math: all in a carefully constructed waltz.



I have spent some time in Bath and was happy when the resplendently unique city was drawn to colourful life by Reay's consistent canvas. As Seattle, Chicago, Italy and Ha'worth before, Bath becomes a pulsing throbbing city-- the antidote to the surging Austin heat.

While this book may remind readers of Austenland by Shannon Hale, it takes a step further in immersing the reader not just in a surfacely Austen world of Regency mannerisms and dialect; rather a deeper look at the wisdom of Austen and her prodding and poking into the deepest tenets of human nature. There is a particularly profound moment that finds Mary understanding more about Austen's relationship to Bath beyond the lens of Persuasion and Northanger Abbey that made me shoot up and think.


this book glistens.








What makes The Austen Escape different than all other Austen updates and adaptations is that rather than just making a contemporary parallel of an Austen story and Austen characters, she works a profound and meaningful thesis about Austen into prosaic form. And that is why the Austen Escape is an integral companion to the study of Austen in the 21st Century.


[with thanks to Thomas Nelson for the review copy]



A few quotes:

"As the morning rolled up its sleeves and got ready to welcome its friend afternoon, the sunshine held fast in the clear sky."


"And Nathan fished. The silence was light and lovely until I realized it wasn't silence at all. The stream gurgled, birds chirped, something called in the distance."


"Something had been missing and its absence only felt with its return. Nature abhors a vacuum and will fill it but you must create an opening. Music was that opening. It felt as if the universe was expanding right before me, in a ballroom in Bath,"


"And I was diminishing--as one should before the size and unending grandeur of the universe. It wasn't that I was smaller or less significant; it simply felt like I didn't need to fight for a place within it or for my own protection. "


"I waited too and watched the stars. A few flickered and the sky felt like music. Music required honesty."

I really enjoyed this book. First I'm a sucker for Jane Austen anything. She is my favorite classics author. This book was such a light and easy read, which is one of the reasons why I liked it so much. I felt like I should've known the plot twist was coming but didn't realize it until it happens, which I wasn't too made at meself for.

Received a prepublication copy of this book from NetGalley. An interesting spin on the use of Jane Austen characters in a modern tale. The book moves from an entirely modern setting to a modern day Regency adventure and then back again. The main character and her love interest add the element of romance but the diverse range of minor characters also add greatly to the tale. I suspect this book will be more appealing to those who who are familiar with the Austen novels. A good, light read and I will read more books by the same author in future if the opportunity arises.

I read The Bronte Plot last year and really enjoyed it, so it made sense to give The Austen Escape a try, and it did not disappoint.

Katherine Reay writes novels about American's who love English Literature. As the title may give away, this one is about all things Jane Austen.

Mary is an engineer for a start up company called WATT, she loves her job and she's in love with a colleague Nathan who never seems to look at her that way. On top of that she's beginning to fear that the new hardcore CEO Karen is going to fire her. Unrequited love and fear of losing her job come to a head when her latest project becomes a failure and she snatches up the opportunity to visit Bath, England with her friend Isabel who is writing her dissertation on Austen's novels. Cue adults playing dress up at an old regency style house and many shenanigans going down.

But things take a sinister turn as well and then a very unexpected one. The plot twist is cleverly laid out. One of those that makes you go 'doh!' For not realising it was obvious what was going on all along.

The novel is well written, it's very light and fun, it's not by any means a serious book but that doesn't stop it from being enjoyable. Sometimes light and fun is exactly what a reader needs! I love the play on the historical literature in a modern day setting as well and it's definitely inspired me further to visit Bath! Another lovely read from author Katherine Reay.

Mary Davies is an engineer for a start-up tech company that is growing rapidly, and experiencing some not-so-great growing pains. Mary's future there feels uncertain, as the new hire in charge of growing the company doesn't appreciate Mary or her methods. Mary's childhood friend, Isabel, has invited Mary to accompany her on a trip to England, where they'll escape into Jane Austen's world together as part of Isabel's thesis. Initially, Mary refuses, but the uncertainty at work, along with a confusing potential relationship leads her to accept the invitation. Once they've arrived, complications arise, and Mary is left reeling and caught in the middle of helping her friend and making decisions about her own life, relationships, and future.

I must confess that I am not a Jane Austen fan. And yet, I cannot help but pick up every one of Katherine Reay's Austen books. And I cannot help but enjoy them, even though I am certain that they would feel even richer if I were to understand the background and references that are so tidily woven into them. This book, in particular, drew me in with its female engineer as the main character. I am not an electrical-gizmo type engineer, but I am mathematically and scientifically minded. I enjoyed watching the character's academic and practical nature contrast with her romantic inclinations and how she tied her memories of her past with her inventions and dreams for the future.

The relationship with Isabel was complicated, and could have served as its own story, but the pressures there, and the hurts that hadn't healed, all served to develop Mary's character and to help her to see herself as she should. Additionally, the relationship with Nathan wasn't as fleshed out as it could have been, but that wasn't the purpose of the book. Instead, Mary learned to deal with her past, and to realize how to make her future richer and to include the people around her to enable it to be so.

I give this book 4 stars. I always hesitate to pick up these Austen books, because I feel like I'm doing them a disservice, having not read Austen herself, and yet I am never disappointed.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, in exchange for my honest review.

This book didn't resonate with me like I thought it would. Maybe the stakes weren't high enough. I did like the tender relationship Mary had with her father, but nothing else in the novel captivated me.

Another outstanding book by such an exceptional author, I devoured this book in a day it was that good! I love how the author loves Austen but creates her own unique story lines that are interesting and witty. I loved how the characters developed over the book and how the author developed the secondary characters as well which I always appreciate.
Another outstanding read that I highly recommend!