For thirty-five year old Charlotte Emory, leaving her husband seems to offer the only way out from the mundaneness of every day life's earthly possessions and emotional complications. In the bank, she withdraws enough money to escape a life and a marriage gone sour. But Charlotte is about to escape in a way she never expected, as a young bank robber takes her hostage, and they head south for Florida in a stolen car. OVER A MILLION ANNE TYLER BOOKS SOLD `She's changed my perception on life' Anna Chancellor `One of my favourite authors ' Liane Moriarty `She spins gold' Elizabeth Buchan `Anne Tyler has no peer' Anita Shreve `My favourite writer, and the best line-and-length novelist in the world' Nick Hornby `A masterly author' Sebastian Faulks `Tyler is not merely good, she is wickedly good' John Updike `I love Anne Tyler' Anita Brookner `Her fiction has strength of vision, originality, freshness, unconquerable humour' Eudora Welty