One Step Too Far by Tina Seskis

One Step Too Far by Tina Seskis
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Tina Seskis's stunning debut novel, One Step Too Far, is a gripping and haunting psychological thriller.

An apparently happy marriage. A beautiful son. A lovely home.
So what makes Emily Coleman get up one morning and walk right out of her life? How will she survive? And what is the date that looms, threatening to force her to confront her past?
No-one has ever guessed her secret. Will you?

This was well written and intriguing at the start - why would someone (Emma/Cat) who appears to have a perfect life suddenly decide one morning to plan to disappear? I liked the characters who were crafted well, the lovely Angel and the mixed bag of flawed flatmates that Emma/Cat finds herself living with.

Emma/Cat's somewhat meteoric rise in her new job was a bit of a stretch but the pace was steady through the novel and stayed just this side of believability.

For me this was not a page turner, it just didn't have the elements of suspense to elevate it to be one of the greats. There wasn't the suspense and clever intrigue to put this in the same class as Girl on a Train. It had good humour, albeit sometimes more dark than uplifting and allowing the reader to mistake Charlie for the son was quite inspirational. I didn't quite buy into the 'twist' which I almost felt was a panicky last minute invention where the writer felt 'Oh I need to add a twist' and came up with something which didn't really fit and was a bit lame.

This is a nice pleasant holiday read with no real fireworks, enjoyable but not particularly memorable - this gets 3 stars from me.