About Us

About Us

 

We began as two book lovers who fell in love with chick lit with Marian Keyes and Bridget Jones’s Diary and decided to share our love of reading and our favourite genre with online reviews. Since Novel Escapes was formed in 2009, we’ve reviewed hundreds of novels, grown to add three new reviewers, hosted giveaways, interviews and author guest reviews. And mostly importantly, we love shouting out about great reads! Happy Reading!

 Our Reviews

Our reviews are a quick overview of the book and our opinions. We don't get bogged down in too much detail because we don't want to give anything away and if it's a great book, you should start reading it instead of a long winded review. We also want to move on to other books as quickly as possible to bring you more reviews.

The star rating at the top of each review is either the rating of one reviewer or an old school average rating when Kathryn and Lydia thought they could read and review every book.  Now that we've become inundated with review requests we decided it simply wasn't feasible to continue this and in addition to not doing multiple reviews per book, we've brought on two new reviewers to keep those reviews coming! There may still be some overlap from time to time though.

We do receive novels for review from publishers, publicists and authors, but all opinions are our own and we never charge for our reviewing services. Read our Review Policy here...

Thanks for visiting and we hope we can help you find your next great read!

Happy Reading!

Kathryn

My grandmother introduced me to authors Rosamunde Pilcher and Maeve Binchy when I was about twelve and really this was my introduction to "chick lit". They were books that she enjoyed and reminded her of her home back in England and were always completely absorbing "gentle" stories about families and relationships.

Since then I have been buying and borrowing book after book and have slowly built up a collection of my own. It still includes lots of the ones my grandmother loved and now many (many) of the newly evolved genre now officially named "chick lit".

I'm also now digging out the books I loved as a pre-teen for my baby daughter and am realising that the genre begins really early and can't wait to re-read some of them in a few years! Clearly I've been into this a long time!

Lydia and I wanted to start this website to encourage our own reading habits, to expand, as well as bring our opinions and notes on the books that we read to other people. As mentioned though we promise not to ruin the endings for you.

If you are reading and enjoying chick lit already then this will be a great place to be introduced to new chick lit authors as well as other literature.

Lydia

Kathryn introduced me to chick lit well before it even had a name and soon enough we were both reading them non stop. I may well be a cliche because I think Bridget Jones's Diary was the first chick lit novel I ever read and as soon as I identified with her voice and the new genre I would grow to love, I was hooked.

We devoured Marian Keyes and discovered new authors such as Jennifer Weiner, Sophie Kinsella and Jane Green, among others. Passing these books back and forth to each other and onto other family and friends, we raved about this new genre that seemed to speak directly to us. We read single girl lit for years and as our lives changed and we got married, we started to read wedding lit and mom lit. To this day, there is no chick lit we won't read though and still enjoy a great single girl story and lately have even reread some of our old favourites.

As much as I love this genre, unfortunately there are some chick lit novels that don't live up to the quality standards I have come to expect. I hope this website will help guide your choices as we sort out the great ones from the not so great so you don't have to waste your time, not to mention hard earned money on lower quality chick lit.

Kaley

I've been surrounded by books for as long as I can remember. I credit my mom with my love of reading. She never discouraged my sister and I from reading even when we should have been doing something else, like cleaning our room or doing our homework. My love of books even translated into my first two jobs. I worked at my town's public library all through high school and then worked at a bookstore while in university and just after I graduated. My favourite thing about those jobs (and the only thing I miss, if I'm being honest) was being able to talk about books to customers all day. Writing reviews (both for Novel Escapes and my own blog) is a way for me to continue that. I will happily chat about books to anyone who will listen, and sometimes even to those who won't!

I will admit (quite proudly) that chick lit is my favourite genre. I think this stems from wanting to read something light and fun in between all the textbooks I had to read at university. I try to read other novels as well but I always seem to come back to chick lit.

I try to keep my reviews light, clever, and funny. If I don't love a book I will not bash it because I don't think that's fair to the author. I give my honest opinion and let other readers make up their own minds.

 Sabrina-Kate

I started loving books at a very young age. They were the only thing that would keep me from screaming during family road trips and I would look at the pictures until I learned how to read.

Always reading everything I could get my hands on, I remember impatiently waiting for the Scholastic book package that I’d get every summer for my summer reading. Characters like Booky, Fudge and Mary Lennox opened my mind to a whole world of possibilities and stories.

Having adored books ever since, I always have a book (or several on Kindle) with me at all times, even when out on a night out on the town!

Jen

My name is Jen and reviewing books for Novel Escapes is a dream come true. I love reading and I talk alot, so this is just the best of both worlds! 

I have been  a self proclaimed book worm for as long as I can remember. I can read in the car and remember stuffing a towel in the door jam of my bedroom so my mom couldn't see the light and know I was still up reading.d

Reading, to me, is not just a way to relax and escape to another world for a little "vacation" but it's also a way to learn about different parts of the world, new people, other cultures and lifestyles that you would otherwise never come in contact with. And then there's chick lit, and let's face it. I love Love. Love to talk about it, love to be in it, and love to read about it. There's no other way to spend my kids' naptime than curled up in my comfy chair with a cup of coffee, a fuzzy blanket and a good romance. 

I try to see a bright side to everything in life and I'll do the same for every review I do. At the same time, I'll probably have an idea of how to change things if the book I'm reading doesn't resonate with me or stir up some emotion. I love fast pace books that keep me thinking even after I'm done reading.

Rest assured, any book with a little fun, love, laughter and adventure will win in my eyes. Happy reading!