Escaping Life

by Michelle Muckley

It’s beautiful here. It’s a beautiful place to die.

Since the accident claimed her sister’s life, Haven has been a sanctuary for Elizabeth Green.She has finally found some of the tranquility that she thought had been lost long ago to the past.Homicide cop Jack Fraser is running away from his miserable life too.But when the discovery of a body on a local beach leads him directly to Elizabeth’s front door, it seems her past might not have been left behind her after all. Together they must face their demons, and in the process expose the dangerous secrets that cloud their lives before it’s too late.

Running from reality is sometimes more painful than discovering the truth.

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Suspense

299 pages, Paperback

First published December 10, 2012

About the author

I was born in the town of Warwick in 1981. It is a small historical town in the heart of England, and Ι was the fifth child born into a family of boys. I developed a huge interest in the written world from a young age, and with more than a little help from Roald Dahl found quite the taste for anything gross and gory. Book club at primary school only proved to increase my love of escaping into the world of a book. Whilst six years at secondary school did little to quell the romantic notion of one day sitting in my mountain cabin and smoking a celebratory cigarette as the first novel was born, somewhere within those six years the dream of becoming a writer got put on hold. Still resting quietly in the background were those long and lingering desires to once again rediscover those old aspirations to write.

About six years ago, with the smouldering embers of a childhood dream sparking uncomfortably underfoot there was what can only be called an epiphany. Who is it that actually becomes a writer? It's the people who write. It's the people who actually do more than say, 'I have a dream'. Whilst this may sound simplistic, it was the revelation I needed to sit down and type Chapter One. The first book, The Loss of Deference was no longer just a fantasy and slowly became a workable manuscript. It was then sent out in eagerness before it was properly edited and therefore it was duly returned, and along with it I collected a nice set of standard rejection letters. Six years later, having uprooted from England to settle on the southern Mediterranean shores of Cyprus, the dream to publish the book once deemed nothing more than a pipe dream is now a reality. I am still working as a part time scientist, but I am also writing daily. When I am not sat at the computer typing about the darker side of life, you will find me hiking in the mountains, drinking frappe at the beach, or talking to myself in the kitchen in the style of an American celebrity chef. Just think Ina Garten.


What people saying about The Loss of Deference.

"The final few chapters as the novel races to its finish is a white-knuckle ride, and more than once I wanted to close my eyes so that I might not see what I was sure was coming."

"Michelle Muckley created a believable dystopian world inhabited by intriguing characters"

"I can't wait to read more from this talented new writer."

"An imaginative, clever and thought provoking book which had me hooked from the first chapter."

Reviews

[The Pirate Ghost (Formerly known as the Curmudgeon) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Okay, wow. I know I owe so many reviews, but I wanted to get this one out before the effect dissipated. Great ENDING! But…I’m skipping a bit… okay, deep breaths, Hugh (me)… try again.

Escaping Life Yes, I “get” the dedication and it’s sadly sweet and understanding of what it means to be human.

I’m giving this 4.5 stars. The category you perceive this to be in, makes a difference. If you think this is a action packed book patterned after a TV detective story, which are fun, you will probably not rate it as high as I have. If you think it’s one of those super deep (and ultra confusing) books of modern literature like May Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” with it’s provocative opening line, “He shot the white girl first” or Park Godwin’s “Waiting For the Galactic Bus,” you’d be closer to the target, but still likely to see other things more fitting.

But, if you like cozy mysteries that have a bit of an edge to them, then this will open your eyes in pleasant surprise. If you are like me, and you enjoy a book where the author takes the time to help you get to know the characters involved, the score goes up here. If you are like me and you love books that involve spiritual connections with real lives, issues that resonate between the characters in ways that make cloudy things clear, that also have an interesting and gripping mystery at the heart of it, then this is right up your alley.

I want to take a few words to explain what I mean by “Spiritual.” First and foremost, I do not mean “God or Religion.” I mean something larger in scope that “God and Religion” are certainly included in. Second, I don’t mean ghosts, gouls or Urban Fantasy. I like that kind of thing, but, I like a lot of things and this isn’t one of those. To me, spiritual things involve taking from the person I see in the mirror, especially when I’m down, hurting, or damaged in some visible, or invisible way to somebody closer to the person I should be, or that I wish I was. Spiritual things, involve healing the soul, courage and love, those things that give us the power to survive and live after whatever disaster affected us has been resolved. Resolution does not mean everyone walks away happy. It takes work to be happy and perpetual happiness is impossible. Another way something can be “spiritual,” to me, is when two souls come close enough to each other that they are like tuning forks for the same pitch. Strike one tuning fork and hold it close enough to another, they both resonate with the same pitch and frequency. When important, and powerful events strike one life, their humanity resonates, and when they come close enough to another human being who’s had the same emotional or spiritual struggle, they resonate at the same pitch and frequency, even though they never touch.

Cozy-mystery. By Cozy mystery, I do not mean that everything’s warm and fuzzy. I simply mean that, you won’t have to put up with an overwhelming sense of dread, or tension, you don’t have to read through cruel and harsh violence visited innocent people. Not that this stuff isn’t in a cozy mystery, by my definition, only that there is another focus that is just as powerful, or more powerful in the story that works in step with the crime, or the efforts to solve it. Not only that, but, the characters are people that can be seen as “Real People” with real life problems. They are your neighbor or the grocer you wave at and offer gratuitous conversation with simply to pass the time as one human connecting with another. Cozy Mysteries involve people that may not be someone you could befriend, just someone who’s grief, motivation, illness, heartbreak, or fear you can understand because it speaks to that side of us that we all share and that makes us all human and kindred spirits. And last, cozy, the message, or as it seemed to me, the “soul-whispers” that link characters together or the frequency at which their spirits hum,pass a healing or empowering message, that helps us all become, or stay more human than we were before.

So, as an action adventure crime story meh…3 it’s not an action story, as a police procedural..meh 3.5, as a simple mystery, closer to 4 maybe.

As a Cozy-Spiritual-Mystery (by my terms, which may be unique to me) 4.5 stars.

What I liked:

The characters –
Jack (and Kate) – The heartbroken Lead Detective who’d been left behind by his wife and son after a tragic accident that all but killed him, and took them instead. He’s aging, handsome but not like he was in his youth. He thinks he’s letting go of the past, but, he’s actually hanging on tight with white knuckles afraid to let them go, because that would mean they don’t exist. He’s a shell of what being human is and he fills that void inside by distracting himself with work, tracking down murderers, becoming so involved and indulged that his apartment looks like the situation room in the homicide division with pictures taped to the floor and fact sheets. He’s like a wonderful bath with a stopped up drain. To the innocent observer, it looks normal, fine, but the water’s cold and the bubbles from the bath soap have disappeared. It needs to be drained and refilled to be useful again but it’s plugged and Jack hasn’t figured out how to open it.
Kate, his beautiful “Florence Nightingale”, waits for him to drain the cold old useless life water so she can help fill him with new warmth but denial keeps him from pulling the plug. One kind word might open the drain and begin the life cycle anew with Kate, Jack, instead, hangs on to his old pain. When the emptiness becomes too alarming, he accepting the service of a surrogate to whom he can give 40 quid and be left as he was the next morning, and Kate still right outside his door waiting for her chance to share herself with him and enjoy each other’s warmth. He’s chosen to be alone, when life is ready and waiting for him outside his door. Will Kate wait forever?

Elizabeth – Deeply hurt after losing her beloved sister and mother within a week. Her doubts about what happened become the plug that keeps her soul from draining so it can carry on. She’s managed to do a good job of carrying on, and keeping up the image of a loving young wife with a caring gentle husband and a beautiful house overlooking the ocean, but, inside, little has changed in 4 years. Not only has she lost her mother to a murderer, and her sister to an automobile accident, she’s lost her father the same day. And, she has those doubts about what happened. Did Rebecca really die in that crash? She has a loving and caring husband but anger at her father for abandoning her and her sister for leaving her alone keep her from fully realizing the love of Husband. Everyone has done their best to convince her that her sister is dead, so she gives up fighting the world but hangs on to her doubts inside her shell. She’s chosen to be alone, with a beautiful life all around her waiting for a chance to get inside.

Put Elizabeth next to Jack and they resonate at the same, empty pitch. Grahm and Kate wait outside of the same locked door.

Rebecca – The beautiful dead girl found only a week ago. Also, Elizabeth’s sister. Yet Rebecca has a back story too. She had been like Jack and Elizabeth, but the hurt had been too deep and instead of pulling the plug so the pain, fear, anger and desperation could drain from inside her, she escaped to death, not once, but twice. Some things are simply too hard for some souls to bear. Sometimes pain is so deep and so strong that a person simply wants it to stop any way they can get it to stop. They’ve exhausted their options either reasonably or, unreasonably and they can see only one way out. Rebecca takes her own life, but this time, she leaves a clue so that Elizabeth might find her plug and open her life, so that the secrets that have been killing her can drain away and open Elizabeth’s life as well. Pain resonates. Secrets kill. Letting go may not heal, but it is relief. She shows Jack how to do it first, or he figures it out, then, together they help Elizabeth.

Barry Smith – He is Jack if nothing happens to heal him. He’s also the human anchor to Rebecca’s humanity. He is the first one (in the story) whom Rebecca attempts to heal before leaving him alone. He lives alone, by choice, like Jack immersed himself in his cases, he allows himself to become absorbed by soap operas. Perhaps a kindred spirit with those whose lives are better imagined than lived.

Daddy – Shattered by the loss of his wife, angry at the disappearance of his daughter (Rebecca) and determined to claim he’s moved past them both by swearing that they are dead and asking no questions. He’s withdrawn from everybody who mattered, or lost them. Lost in his own self-indulgence. As a father, a disciplinarian, as a man in mourning, something else, but he’s determined to hang on to the future and not look back for fear that the past might consume him.
Only by learning the truth can they let go. What happened to Rebecca?
I don’t know if Ms Muckley intended for these spiritual connections to be in this book or if they showed up by accident, or even if, because I have a fanciful brain, I concocted all of it because these characters spoke to my human side, without overpowering it. The truth does set you free, and, sometimes it is a very painful healing. Never choose to be alone. It’s the human connections we make to each other, the rich lawyer, the policeman, the devoted wife and sister, the clerk who sells bus tickets that help us remember what life is like and what it means to be human. –“To love is to live…don’t miss love.”—(Leo Buscaglia, Love 1979).

Plot
The mystery is good, well managed and, by itself, not that difficult to figure out. Having said that, even as easy as it was to figure out, the rapid building of tension and pace at the end of the story had me on the edge of my seat wondering if this would be a tragic sad ending, or a happy one. Who would be wounded this time and who would die, or worse, who might live. It’s the human connections that drive this book, in my opinion, not the mystery, which is good, but not the most intricate or complex.

The execution is wonderful. Instead of a spider web with a wicked black widow at the center of it, the spiritual connections become a quilt, made with sheets of painful memories that, joined together, feel warm and inviting. If you want to cut straight to the case, that doesn’t happen here. The real magic isn’t in the crime, though it’s magical, it’s in the journey to solve it, the growth in the wounded (Jack and Elizabeth) and spiritual healing from shells of human beings, to being whole, complete, flawed and sad but human.

It’s important that the author take the time to share all of the details of Jack and Elizabeth’s back story. It’s important that we learn about Kate and Grahm. It’s even important that we learn about Barry at the Bus station because it’s the journey towards healing that is most important. The fact that there is also a wonderful mystery to solve and an exciting finish to sort out is simply icing on the cake.

[Kyrana Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

Escaping Life written by Michelle Muckley begins slowly as the author takes time to set the scene and the circumstances of this mystery in detail. This technique actually adds to the mood of the story as the writer gently unfolds a painful tale of loss and betrayal and the ripples these events generate in the lives of the characters.

Muckley’s characters are believable and the murderer is hard to identify for most of the story. The suspense builds as the truth bursts out into the open with a dramatic final scene.

There are technical hurdles to overcome due to poor editing but the story is still a good read for a rainy day.

[Barbara Heckendorn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Written in a sentimental way, it's a story which involves a family tragedy, sisterly love, regaining one's own strength, friendship and belief. From the start I never have gotten the feeling to take a special character's side. To all of them I had the same feeling and I was dipping into their fate likewise. The outcome of the story wasn't a surprise more the bottom line from the previous knowledge.

[Kitty Muse Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the sleepy little village of Haven, there isn’t a lot to do on a Sunday morning. Loll in the back garden, sip tea, and read the paper. To Elizabeth Green, the announcements section is always the best part of the daily news.

Births, graduations, wedding announcements…

…letters from your sister, who died four years ago???

If that isn’t something to get the adrenaline going on a summer morning!

Somehow, though, Elizabeth isn’t overly surprised. After all, no one had ever found Rebecca’s body in that car crash. But everyone else assumed it was so, and so it was.

But what is Rebecca’s warning about? And why didn’t she come by in person?

Hopes are soaring, then are dashed, as Elizabeth’s husband finds a reference to a body found recently on a beach. After a call to Detective Jack Fraser, of the Chesterwood P.D., it is verified that, this time, Rebecca is surely and certainly dead–and by her own hand. She leaves clues beside her body, and it is up to Elizabeth and Jack to figure out why Rebecca decided to escape life this way.

Detective Fraser has escapes of his own to deal with, on a personal basis. His own wife and child died in a car crash, and he is still trying to find his way through his grief. Relationships come and go as he tries to reconcile his past with both the present and his future.

Rebecca and Detective Fraser–both victims of trauma, both trying to find a way out of the pain. But they are not alone. Elizabeth is also trying to escape life–or at least the memories of the cruel and horrible way her mother died, and how her world and family came apart.

The cases of Rebecca’s death, and that of her mother, are solved in a most dramatic way, and the survivors learn something very important–in cases like this, where escape is longed for, it is best not to go it alone.

Fantastic book! It starts with the first page, where Ms. Muckley writes: “…dedicated to those who chose to escape”. Once you read the book, you will understand.

Written with the skill she has shown in her other books, the story is woven seamlessly, and the plot is constant and holds the interest throughout. At times it seems as if Elizabeth and Jack might become more than just detective and client, but it turns out even better than that. As with all good “whodunit”s, the cause of the crises between the sisters, that starts with the murder of their mother, is never known til the end.

The descriptives are so good–I really wanted to spend a weekend in Haven (and what a good name for a town in a book with the title “Escaping Life”). And I wanted to avoid Chesterwood like the plague!

I highly recommend this book, and I certainly hope Ms. Muckley is still creating more stories for her audience.

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved reading this book. I found myself wanting to devour just one more chapter, just one more chapter, and not wanting to put this book down. It was well paced and had a good level of detail without being bogged down with pages and pages of descriptive paragraphs. I guess whodunnit right early on at the beginning of the book, but that didn’t take anything away from my enjoyment of the story. I only marked it down one star because of my usual pet peeve when it comes to books. Poor spelling and grammar (and lack of punctuation). Some examples that stick are “could of” even though could have is used in the same sentence 🤨 and “I killed my wife detective” instead of “I killed my wife, detective” punctuation. It’s the difference between belong your uncle, Jack, off a horse and helping your uncle Jack off a horse.

[Amanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

I almost didn't finish this book because it started out so slow and oddly. The farther I got, the better it was. I felt like it was sometimes a bit hard to follow. It would have been helpful to have dates or something saying when a chapter was going to be a flashback to the past, but overall I really enjoyed this book.

[Val · Rating 3 out of 5]

Elizabeth Green finds peace, following the death of her sister. Detective Jack Fraser is hiding from life. The pair are thrown together when a body is found on a local beach.

[Katherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Have you ever had a reading experience where you felt as though you spoke a different language than the author?

That was the case for me here. The storyline was compelling but several reoccurring problems kept me from truly enjoying it: odd descriptive choices including runaway similes, awkward phrasing, and the informal British colloquial usage of certain terms. (For instance sat instead of sitting even though it was meant to be present tense.) I kept having to reread sentences, and sometimes entire paragraphs, to clarify what the author was attempting to convey.

I finished the book but was left with the distinct impression it had been rushed into publication before being sufficiently edited. Which was really unfortunate because otherwise it might have been great.

[Elouise Ryder · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first few chapters of Escaping Life caught my interest, and Ms. Muckley’s writing is emotionally evocative. For the most part, it is grammatically well done, which makes it pleasant reading.

This book’s major flaw is its predictability. I had it figured out early on. I kept reading because I hoped it would surprise me. And the writing was nice. A flaw in the story itself is that I doubt very much that any insurance company would pay without a body, regardless of the skill of the lawyer. Another irritant was that Rebecca was a grown woman, intelligent and successful in the world, who, I believe, would not have acted the way she did.

I give it 4 stars minus ½.

[Babus Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Idyllic setting but unfortunately very predictable you see it coming pages in advance in this book. Characters are likeable but lacks the fizz you expect from a mystery.

[Hanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The writing was rather poor and there wasn't much plot.

[Ruth Loizides · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, emotional read