The author creates a new world in the Alps and a modern hero of Jim, an American hiker who agrees to search for a missing French politician's wife when he encounters her three daughters in a wayside hut. Jim himself is a victim of loss, having had his life turned inside out when he loses his fiancé and his Wall St job. When he does find the remarkable Calliope, surprises abound for them both. The most vivid characters are the mountains, its valleys and caves, and the impact of such isolation. The novel is memorable, the writing very beautiful, and the ending works. ( )

Sometimes a person just wants to disappear. When life isn't going your way, slipping off for some solitude, to regroup, to be alone, sounds wonderful. I imagine this is especially true if life's unpleasantness is playing out in the press or public. But escaping is not the end of it, because sooner or later someone is going to want you to come home, before dinner, before your disappearance has a bigger impact than the original issue, before a predicted snow storm blows in in the Alps. In Elizabeth Birkelund's graceful, short novel The Runaway Wife, this last situation is very much the case.

American Jim Olsen is hiking in the Swiss Alps with a friend. He's taking a brief vacation between jobs (he lost his prestigious job but has another less prestigious one lined up) and trying to come to terms with his ex-fiancee finding someone else. Clearly life isn't going very well for him; his earnest loyalty isn't serving his well at all. When he and his friend make it to an Alpine hutte, they are joined by a trio of beautiful sisters. Named for the muses, Clio, Thalia, and Helene have been trying to find their mother, Calliope, who disappeared into the Alps after her philandering husband, a French politician running for President, was photographed leaving the hospital where he was visiting his mistress and new baby daughter. Jim finds the trio enchanting and finds himself, despite his novice hiking abilities, agreeing to take up the search for Calliope and to return her safely to her daughters before the projected bad weather arrives.

As Jim heads into the mountains looking for Calliope, he has the chance to reflect on his own life, the things he's lost, and what those losses ultimately mean to him. As helicopters sent by Calliope's husband continue to scour the mountains looking for any trace of her, he also has a large, loud, and obvious reminder that it is incredibly hard to permanently escape; your life and your past are always waiting for you. Although Calliope isn't necessarily keen to be found, she accepts Jim's presence in her idyllic mountain hideaway, eventually telling him about her own need for escape and why she is so determined to elude her husband's men. Jim finds Calliope free-spirited and as enchanting as her daughters, two of whom he encounters in his dreams nightly. He is determined to carry out his rescue mission and return to the life he's planned for himself despite growing misgivings. Time is running out on making any of this happen before the predicted snow falls as Jim's adventure becomes a race against time.

Birkelund's writing about the Alps is beautiful and evocative. She has set up the conflict between self-determination and being subsumed under others' expectations simply and clearly. That this dichotomy plays out in more characters' lives than just Jim's and Calliope's is quite well done. The novel is magical in feel but just as elusive and hard to pin down as Calliope is. Jim's meeting with the three sisters feels fated but his immediate and continuing connection to them is a little underdeveloped. The ending is uncertain but still feels right. This brief novel has a very French aesthetic to it and its air of unreality or other-worldliness will put off some readers but its insight into determining your own life is one worth visiting. ( )

First off let me start by saying this book is a very quick read. It is light, airy and a little magical (kind of like a fairy tale or dream). The beautiful backdrop location of the Alps lent a nice place for this story and helped to add to the magic. It was like I was there with Jim and Calliope. So glad that their relationship was strictly friendship and nothing more. Although I never really felt the strong vibe that Jim got from the Castellane sisters. Yes, their beauty was grand but they really never helped the story or Jim and Calliope's time together. Speaking of Jim, I wished that he had let go a little more and embrace the moments that he was living at the time. I could see where this story was leading. I will always remember Calliope as she was in the Alps living as a "free winter fairy". ( )