One Step Too Far by Tina Seskis

Published by Kirk Parolles

Synopsis from Goodreads:

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?

My thoughts:

I really enjoyed this
book and the story drew me in from the very first page.  It begins with Emily leaving behind her family
and starting another life many miles away. 
From the very beginning I was wondering what on earth could have
happened to make someone do that.   Emily
seemingly had a perfect life -so why did she leave…?

Emily is the product
of a dysfunctional family, she has a twin sister , Caroline, just an hour younger
than herself.  Caroline is the exact
opposite of Emily – Emily is fundamentally a good person whereas Caroline has a
destructive nature.   

As the story
progresses and we follow Emily in her new life – when she changes her name to
Cat, there is a feeling of tension – it is always in the background that she is
running away from someone/something and she goes to great lengths to ensure
that she won’t be found.  

I wanted to dislike
Emily/Cat for leaving her family, but I couldn’t. She isn’t perfect, she does
have a flawed personality and she does get involved in situations that she
shouldn’t but the author has made her a very real person.   From
the hovel that she first moves into and then to her ensuing friendship with
Angel, who she meets when she moves to London, the story is believable.  Angel too is an interesting character and
with flashbacks we find out more about her life. 

The story is told with
alternating chapters of the back story to the time when Cat and Caroline were
born and their parent’s behaviours, their young lives and also Angel’s story
and so the reader builds up a picture. Of course we are not told everything and
when a tragic event brings Cat’s world crashing around her, we then discover
the rest of her story.   

The story kept me
hooked and I wanted to keep reading to discover more.  For a debut novel it is excellent and I
certainly look forward to reading more by this author.  

My thanks to Netgalley
and publisher Kirk Parolles for the digital copy to
review. 

5/5 

Author website: http://tinaseskis.com