A Novel by Tina Seskis, HarperCollins, January 2015.
* An e-copy was provided by HarperCollins via Edelweiss for an honest review.
ONE STEP TOO FAR, by Tina Seskis, is a psychological mystery that certainly has a lot of twists and turns. Part of the story is set in the 1980s and starts with a woman expecting one child that she's not sure she wants, then during the birth, she is distressed to find she's having twins. As the children grow, the family falls apart. The mother favors the first twin, Emily, and practically ignores the second, Caroline. Of course, Caroline picks up on this disparity and becomes manipulative and mean. She is jealous of Emily and causes trouble whenever she can.
In the present, the main story surrounds Emily's life. One day she leaves her husband and home, changes her name to Cat, moves in a group house and begins work at a hip advertising agency in London. One of her housemates is Angel, and the two of them quickly bond and become inseparable. As Cat, she tries to erase all traces of her old life so no one can find her. But no matter what she does or where she goes, she can't get rid of her memories and the truth of what happened in her past.
The psychological aspect of the story seemed plausible, and the ending was somewhat satisfying. However, I found the story structure confusing and disjointed. The book has several points of view and skips from present, to past, to future, back to present and so on. Plus, Emily/Cat's narrative is in first person, present tense, while all the other point of views are in third person, past tense. A few times I began a new chapter and had to read several paragraphs before I could tell in whose point of view I was reading.
Also, the cover of the book was too washed out and seemed boring to me. If I'd seen it on a store's bookshelf, I would have ignored it. I know the author rarely has a say in the cover design, and frequently the cover artist only gets to read a blurb for the story before preparing a cover. But this particular cover just didn't work for me.
All in all, the book's premise was interesting and the characters were far from flat. But the story lacked a good overall structure and was, at times, confusing. Because of this, I gave it 3.5 stars.
And fair warning—the story is very depressing.
If You Like This, You May Also Like: THE PERFECT MOTHER by Nina Darnton, THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN by Paula Hawkins, THE MAGICIAN'S LIE by Greer Macallister, VANESSA AND HER SISTER by Priya Parmar