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Monday, March 3, 2014

Review - One Step Too Far



Book Description
Publication Date: April 15, 2013
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 to start all over again? Has she had a breakdown? Was it to escape her dysfunctional family - especially her flawed twin sister Caroline who always seemed to hate her? And what is the date that looms, threatening to force her to confront her past? No-one has ever guessed her secret. Will you?

Book Readers Review

Tina Seskis' first novel One Step Too Far a tale of one woman and her emotional roller coaster life in a dysfunctional family.  The story is told in narration from multiple points of view and flashbacks.  Insight into Emily Coleman's life, her family and friends is revealed through many layers.  At times this can be confusing, especially if the reader is not completely focused.  As the plot progresses you believe you have it figured yet another twist and turn occurs in Emily's life.  You begin to wonder how much more psychological trauma can this poor woman endure.  Her life appears to go from near perfect to a nightmare existence.

The book started quite slow with much detail but as the storyline developed and pace picked up, I was hooked.  Overall, I found Tina's writing style excellent and compelling with the mix of mystery and psychological thriller.  Seskis has a gift for dialogue, description, and drama. As the What, Why, and how of Emily's predicament progresses, its easy to arrive at conclusions, and then there's a surprise.  The final chapters had an emotional impact for me that put aside all the ambivalent feelings towards several of the players in the novel.  Tina keeps you guessing to the last chapters. Altogether an unexpected ending.  Many clues throughout the book led me to visualize different outcomes.  But absolutely not the final one.  If you appreciate a challenge, try reading without too many outside distractions.  A very different and enjoyable read. I received the book from NetGalley for review.  Thank you NetGalley.


About the Author
Tina Seskis grew up in Hampshire, the daughter of an airline engineer and a sales rep. Her parents bestowed upon Tina a certain degree of eccentricity: her dad amongst other things built a boat in the front garden on their commuter belt housing estate, moved them into a touring caravan when their new house wasn t built, and took them all over the world with his free air travel and limited budget. Tina studied business at the University of Bath and then worked for over 20 years in marketing, advertising and online, with varying degrees of success. Before that she did a variety of other jobs including door to door encylopedia selling in the US, industrial relations for Ford in Halewood, Liverpool, and selling bacon butties with her granny in the Halfway Hut at Wentworth Golf Club. Tina never intended writing a novel. She wrote One Step Too Far over a two month period in summer 2010 and then gave up writing entirely for well over a year, before writing her second novel A Serpentine Affair in autumn 2011. Her third book (working title Collision) is due for completion in 2013, and is the coming together of a key character from each of the first two novels, if Tina can one day solve how to make the plot work. Tina Seskis lives in North London with her husband and son.

Purchase:  Amazon 

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