The Great Escape audiobook

I really enjoyed this novel. It's relaxing, perfect for escapism.Susan Elizabeth Phillips is the master when it comes to light hearted romance.It took me some time to finish The Great Escape, but it's because I've been pretty busy lately and didn't have much time to read.In normal circumstances, I'd probably finish it in 2-3 days.

5 STARSI don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’ve finally reached the end of the Wynette Texas Series. And I have cherished each and every story. I heard a whisper on the wind that there may be an eighth book???!!! PLEASE YES! If not, I know I will be re-reading these books for years to come. The Great Escape is Lucy Jorik’s story. We first met Lucy as a surly but frightened fourteen year old girl in First Lady. Left orphaned by an alcoholic and neglectful mother, Lucy was forced to grow up fast, and take over the responsibilities her mother left behind like caring for her half sister, Tracy, who was only a year old at the time.But life’s been more than good to her since. Now, as the adopted daughter of Matt Jorik and Cornelia Litchfield Case, who just happens to be the former President of the United States, Lucy has become accustomed to living her life in the spotlight. So when she decided to ditch Texas’ most eligible bachelor and golden boy, Ted Beaudine, at the alter, the whole world was there to watch.So where’s a runaway bride to go when there’s secret service on her tail? Apparently on the back of a motorcycle of some random guy with nothing but a choir robe and a pair of stilettos. ”I’ll bet you were real popular with the Secret Service.” Tired of playing it safe, Lucy embarks on an adventure that will change the coarse of her life forever. So who is this random guy? Apparently his name is Panda. Or so he tells her. And, as it turns out, he may not be as random as she’d originally thought. And Lucy may just find that she’s escaped the frying pan, just to wind up in the fire. And this one is much hotter than she’s prepared to handle, and it’s more than likely going to leave her burned. ”Don’t look.” He looked. Not even being subtle about it but studying her in a way that made her skin hot. Long seconds passed before he spoke. “Are you sure about this?”No games.Straight to the point.Pure Panda. “You have a college degree? You can barely talk.” Once again, a hilariously funny and touching romance. A road trip of self discovery for both our heroine and her broken hero. I absolutely love the dialogue in these books. The verbal banter and the hate/love relationships that come out of them. ”Get real, Panda. I walked out on Ted Beaudine. Do you really think I’m going to lose sleep over you and our hot little summer fling?” The supporting cast was fabulous, as usual. It was like a Secret Life of Bees cast on a reality show called Fat Island, where everyone finds love and happiness in the end. Well, it didn’t actually go down that way, and the journey was anything but smooth. But in the end the results were about as perfect as life can get. “I hate to admit this, but some days hearing about other people's problems actually cheers me up.” Again a HEA that is put through the paces, chewed up and spit out into a rock solid love of the ages. And she always ties it together with a beautiful epilogue. [image error] Be the best at what you’re good at. Who could have known he’d be so good at this? If there is one thing I can say about Susan Elizabeth Phillips… it’s that I know that when I pick up one of her books, I will fall in love once again with a brand new set of wonderful characters. I will definitely laugh out loud, I will be drawn in deep, I may shed a few tears, I will most definitely be aroused, and I will love every minute of it. Ok. that was more than one thing… but in short, I am guaranteed an adventure that will warm my heart, and leave me wanting more. I can’t recommend these books enough.

3 ½ stars. I felt good while reading the paperback, but the audiobook narrator ruined it.REVIEWER’S OPINION:I’ve read most of this author’s books and gave 4 or 5 stars to all but two. I love her style. I love her dialogue. I love the way her characters bicker and insult each other. It’s her trademark. When I opened this book and began reading I felt like I had just been reunited with an old friend. A lot of her stories are similar, but I like her kind of stories. Some reviewers claimed it was too long. I prefer long because I like being in her world. Some reviewers complained she talked about too many social issues: racial, disadvantaged youth, lesbian, military PTSD. Didn’t bother me. They were not overwhelming or depressing. They were secondary stories. I’d much rather have secondary stories with various topics than sticking to one couple and filling pages with too much pondering and worrying.Several reviewers claimed there was not enough chemistry between Lucy and Panda. I agree. I would have liked more emotional development. I didn’t feel much desire from either of them. Sure there was sex, but it was “I’m using you for your body. It’s a temporary fling.” The “wow” factor for me is when a guy shows intense desire for a woman, and this book does not do that. Even at the end, it was Lucy who initiated getting together, not Panda’s desire.STORY BRIEF:The main story is Lucy running away from her life, pretending to be something she has never been before, and latching on to surly motorcycle guy Panda. Secondary stories had interesting characters including divorced, down on her luck Bree who recently became guardian to 12-year-old Toby, and fitness guru Temple hiding out for a while.AUDIOBOOK NARRATOR: Shannon CochranNarrator has a nice and pleasant general narration voice, but she is awful with some of the characters. It’s kind of like Alvin the Chipmunk voice. Whenever two characters are talking she uses a normal voice for one character and her chipmunk voice for the other character. She is not consistent. Sometimes Lucy is normal, other times Lucy is chipmunkish, other times Lucy sounds like a high pitched whiny toddler and other times like an elderly lady. She used the chipmunk voice for Toby a 12 year old, a mother and her son at a parade, and Lucy’s stepfather Matt Jorik. It was a weird, icky voice. During a sex scene Lucy sounded dorky and whiny, not sensual. I also didn’t like some of the narrator’s emotional interpretation. I would have said things with a different tone.DATA:Narrative mode: 3rd person. Story length: 418 pages. Swearing language: strong. Sexual language: none. Number of sex scenes: 3. Setting: current day mostly Charity Island, Michigan, with a few other locations. Copyright: 2012. Genre: contemporary romance.OTHER BOOKS:For a list of my reviews of other Susan Elizabeth Phillips books, see my 5 star review of “It Had To Be You.”

★★★★½The Great Escape is the seventh and final installment in Susan Elizabeth Phillips's adult contemporary romance series titled: Wynette, Texas. This story follows up on the opening scene from the sixth book: Call Me Irresistible when Lucy plays the role of runaway bride. That story swiftly segued into the groom's new romance, but what happened to Lucy? Well, Ms. Phillips spills it all in The Great Escape...and I loved it!Ms. Phillips offers readers complex characters who have very complicated but moving moments. Issues commonly seen in the women's fiction genre are addressed, including family, adoption, reinvention, culture/race, disadvantaged circumstances, emotional/behavioral health, PTSD, and self-discovery. In addition, Ms. Phillips' classic humor, banter, and romance remain a loud and clear presence. My only real complaint and the reason for 4.5 stars instead of the full 5 was(view spoiler)[: The pregnancy play Lucy used at the end. I understand that it ended up being real and not just a tactic but I hate to see real or fictional people claim to be pregnant to keep a man. Ugh! (hide spoiler)]. If you haven't met the fabulous Susan Elizabeth Phillips yet then just eenie, meenie, miney, moe one of her series or standalones and get started. She's great!!!My favorite quote:"Be the best at what you're good at."The Wynette, Texas series contains the following installments as of February 2016.#1-Fancy Pants#2-Lady Be Good#3-Glitter Baby#4-First Lady#4.5-My Secret Service Valentine#5-What I Did for Love#6-Call Me Irresistible#7-The Great Escape

How is it that SEP's characters all feel like real people, living real lives? And they're all now my best friends. I'm besties with a former POTUS.

Former First Daughter Lucy Jorik flees from her wedding, gets picked up by a motorcycle-riding guy who is the opposite of the too-perfect groom she's dumped, and finally gets a chance to go a little bad -- and it feels so good. This is a sequel to Call Me Irresistible, which opens with Lucy's failed wedding, but then follows her best friend's romance with the jilted groom. In this book, readers finally get to find out what happened to Lucy. This was everything I love about Susan Elizabeth Phillips's books. It has a beautiful summer setting on a Great Lake, with lots of lazy days spent swimming while Lucy tries to figure out what she wants for her life. It has a gorgeous hero with enough issues to maintain tension. It focuses on family and friendship, with rich sub- and side-plots that fill the story out and create a whole big lived-in world. And for once, the heroine wasn't broke! SEP is definitely my go-to happy romance author right now.

This one is part of a series and reading some of the previous ones will probably benefit you. I particularly recommend reading First Lady to get a bead on Lucy's character. A lot of the motivation in this book is that she has kind of lost who she is and it makes more sense if you see the kind of person she started out as before Nealy and Mat came into her life. I also recommend reading the previous book, Call Me Irresistible because it's fun and it gives you a better understanding of what Lucy is running from. Also, hearing both sides of the cross communication (when Meg and Lucy connect in each story) is more than a little fun. This started out rocky, not least because Lucy is so out to sea. She doesn't really understand her panic or what she's doing or what she wants, only that she needs to be away from her support network for a time. And SEP keeps Panda rather opaque for much of the beginning, too (probably to keep the suspense as he tries some dumb things to scare Lucy away). Plus, I really hate that name. I'm trying to take him seriously as the tough guy he obviously is and Panda just doesn't work with that. I love tough guys who end up caring more than they planned and having this one referred to as Panda all the time kept jerking me out of that. Okay, he is tough but you might as well name him Pierre or Francis for all that name is helping him. It's even worse than if he had some deliberately sweet nickname like Sweetie or Popsicle or something because then you'd at least know it was sarcastic and flip the opposite switch. Panda is just weak.Well, that's a lot more on the name than I expected. I liked Panda and enjoyed getting to know him.And I mostly liked Lucy, though having her spend so much time figuring out who she is was a bit much. She's one of nature's rebels who was frightened enough about causing trouble that she has kept herself strictly in line for way too long. I like that she's fundamentally kind and doesn't want to hurt anybody, but also that she's experimenting with her personal image and habits in a way she finds non-threatening. And I liked the found family aspects of the story as they progressed, even if some of the others bugged me periodically.So it's a good story, though not a pure win. Lucy's personal cluelessness dragged on a bit and I could have done without (view spoiler)[the potential rape scene Panda had to break up. Yeah, he's a hottie and I liked seeing him prove that, but we already knew it and it strained credulity to have a biker gang show up in an island bar that didn't seem all that rough (hide spoiler)]. It just felt contrived. Speaking of contrived, I couldn't help feeling sorry for all the social consciousness force-fed to poor Toby. Is it just me, or is it a bit weird for a couple white chicks to spoon-feed him racial identity dogma? I did like that SEP has him question the need (asking why he's not getting the same stuff for his white half, for example) but I couldn't help feeling like it was a bit much.Anyway, it's not a bad place to end the series (if it is, indeed, the end), and it's a solid four stars. I'm glad to end here, at any rate, and I'm glad we got such an excellent resolution to Lucy's story.A note about Steamy: I let this review go long enough that I've lost the count. It's the middle of my steam tolerance, so no more than a few explicit sex scenes. I don't think there were any from the secondary romances (there were two secondary romances, but they weren't PoV), so yeah, there weren't more than three sex scenes at any rate.

avrei dovuto leggere questo libro immediatamente dopo il sesto (una scelta impossibile) ma il fato ha voluto che lo leggessi dopo "first lady"...assolutamente perfetto. Ritrovare Lucy e la sua famiglia è stato molto piacevole e soprattutto ho apprezzato molto i vari collegamenti tra la sua storia e quella della madre. libro molto bello. Susan Elizabeth Phillips ha la capacità di scrivere la storia nella storia. ogni personaggio fa la sua parte e ogni dettaglio non è lasciato al caso.bello!

A suo tempo non avevo finito questa serie, lasciando indietro proprio questo ultimo libro. Mi ero fatta un po’ influenzare dalle recensioni negative sulla protagonista femminile, che invece mi è proprio piaciuta. Come al solito belli e ben caratterizzati anche i numerosi personaggi secondari che arricchiscono la narrazione. Alla fine mi sono andata a rileggere anche tutti gli atri volumi della serie 😀

Series: Wynette, Texas, #7Contemporary Romance Publication date : July 10, 2012 THE GREAT ESCAPE is another charming story by Susan Elizabeth Phillips that grab you in and won't let you go till you are finished. The story picks up after Lucy, adopted daughter of the President of the US (First Lady), run away from the wedding to her perfect bridegroom, Ted Beaudine. After hopping on the back of a motorcycle driven by a rough-looking man called "Panda", we get to see how Lucy try to find herself and see who the real person underneath the perfect daugher, fiancée and sister really is. I like Lucy. She has warm personality and suffer enough guilt over her escape to make her relatable, but not so much that she'd become whiny and annoying. It took some time to warm up to Patrick "Panda" Shade. His behaviour at the beginning left me confused. I wondered if he will be the one for Lucy. Though I was happy to see the changes in him as the story progress. This story also gave good advice about dieting. I highly recomment to read: Call Me Irresistible and see what happened to Ted after he was dumped at the altar.

Sigo a Susan desde los 18 años, tal vez más, tal vez menos, no soy buena con las fechas, pero me parece que ha sido toda una vida.Cada libro mejor que el anterior, cada historia más loca que la otra.Comprenderán que con esta mujer es difícil escoger un protagonista preferido, pero aún así tengo los míos, cof cof Kevin y Dean. El caso es... SEP es de esas autoras con las que te vas a la segura, de esos escritores por los que esperarías diez años con tal de que te de ese libro, esa dosis, tu droga.Nada que hacer, PANDA (Patrick) o mejor dicho, el guardaespaldas sexy! me ganó y Lucy, tengo que admitir que tengo mis reservas, el libro de sus padres era una cosa, te encariñabas con la adolescente rebelde en First Lady, porque no te quedaba otra opción, la pequeña te robaba el alma!Pero el Call me irresistible, la odiabas, la pobre MEG tenía que pasar un infierno para cubrir a su amiga, aunque luego ni te quejas, porque eso la lleva directamente hasta los brazos de Ted, entonces, estamos acá en La gran fuga, tratando de empatizar con la egoísta e insegura chica que dejó a DON PERFECTO y ya ves! Lo consiguió, sólo SEP conseguiría que soportásemos a una prota así, niña rica que la ha tenido todo y aún así tira por la borda la boda perfecta sin una razón de peso.Por eso, por diálogos rápidos y encantadores, por protagonistas únicos e irrepetibles y sobre todo, porque SEP no decepciona, este libro pasa a mis FAV!