Escape From St. David’s is the story of a wild girl known as Wylder who unexpectedly and instantly dies at the young age of eighteen in a car accident and wakes up to find herself trapped in the cemetery of St. David’s along with all those who’ve been buried there. Despite the other souls being generally kind and welcoming, Wylder can’t help but mourn the life she could’ve had and feels was stolen from her, but she quickly realizes that being dead isn’t the ultimate end many think it to be. Even in the afterlife, there are misunderstandings, darkness, secrets, superstitions, and souls who are willing to do anything to keep things the way they are.

Several characters try to lead the story that the reader would be excused midway to lose track of who the main character is as she becomes invisible to us when she goes missing and we’re left in the hands of side characters who are as clueless as us. Rather than adding suspense to the story, it just makes it drag and feel all over the place. The revelations in the story are dropped onto the readers as retold stories or instructions rather than allowing the readers to observe them or realize them on their own.

While the story does offer a unique and fresh perspective on death and the afterlife told in a unique and fresh way, being the foundation on which a series is meant to be based, it needed something more that just wasn’t there. Perhaps if we’d had a few chapters about Wylder while she was still alive to know what she was like and what she had planned for life, her death and what she did with her afterlife would’ve mattered more to us.

However, the hope and resolution in the story is gripping. We know that there is so much at stake and we feel the souls’ conflict and loss. The author does a great job exploring concepts of holding onto love and letting go of all that gets in the way of a person’s emotional relief – personal heaven.

The story would prove an entertaining read to anyone who enjoys originality and maybe those who’d lost loved ones as it provides a comforting concept that – for all we know – could be true.