GENERAL INFORMATION
TITLE: THE ONE YOU LOVE
AUTHOR: PAUL PILKINGTON
PAGES: 299
PUBLISHER: WWW.KOBO.COM
YEAR: 2011
GENRE: CRIME FICTION
COVER TYPE: E-BOOK
www.kobobooks.com/ebook/The-One-You-Love/book-MuqLboc3h0eZh0Fpov3ZdA/page1.html?s=-nC-iV3oQEefaHYXC8FcNA&r=1
This was a free download from www.kobo.com.
BLURB FROM THE COVER
Emma Holden’s nightmare has just begun. Her fiancé vanishes, leaving the battered and bloodied body of his brother in their London apartment. Someone is stalking her, watching her every move. And her family are hiding a horrifying secret; a secret that threatens all those she loves. In a desperate race against time, Emma must uncover the truth if she ever wants to see her fiancé alive again…
EXTRACT
He watched from the boat as they sailed past the sights of London – the thrusting steel spires of Canary Wharf, the domed O2 Arena, then Tower Bridge, and finally the London eye and Westminster. The sky was deep blue and the sun’s heat intense, so the cooking river breeze had been heaven…
HIGHLIGHTS
I liked the way Pilkington structures The One You Love. He ends each chapter with a cliff hanger, quite often just in the middle of something important happening. This sounds the sort of thing that usually pisses me off. It worked really well in this e-book though. Pilkington created a compulsion to read on. Maybe it’s because it was an e-book. I might be pissed off if I was reading a hard back or a paperback.
The One You Love is crammed with tension, action and drama. Pilkington offers one of those novels where there are about a million different things going on, most of which don’t make sense and may or not be linked to each other. Pilkington perfectly captures the components of a page turner. As I read The One You Love I had all these questions running through my head. Sometimes they were answered and more often than not dozens more were added. I found The One You Love a compelling read. The main story revolves around Emma’s fiancée going missing a few days before the wedding and his brother being almost beaten to death in their apartment. Pilkington gives us sexually obsessed stalkers, revenge, secrets and suicide and a few other things. The One You Love kept me guessing until the end.
I liked the characters in The One You Love. I felt I really got to know Emma, her brother, her father. I wanted Emma to find out what really happened to Dan. I wanted to know her brother and father’s secret. The other, more minor characters were also very engaging.
I really liked all the twists and turns the plot of The One You Love took. At first the novel appeared to be about Emma’s fiancée doing the runner like her previous one – history repeating and all that. Pilkington quickly reveals this is just one layer in a complicated onion (did I really write that?). Pilkington reveals the real reason Emma’s first fiancé lest before he kills himself after she rejects his attempt to reconcile. There hints all the way through that her father and brother have some deep, dark secret and boy do they ever! We also have an obsessed fan who stalked Emma years before and who may or may not be connected to current events. I really liked that Pilkington kept me on my toes throughout The One You Love.
LOWLIGHTS
I hated the title of this novel. The One You Love is corny and slushy and more like the title of some cheesy Mills & Boon romance than a fast paced thriller. The front cover is also pretty shit. Cheese-fest.
The One You Love is Pilkington’s first novel and you can tell. It reeks of amateur. Pilkington has an annoying habit of explaining his characters emotions and the way they say certain things. There is far too much exposition in The One You Love as if Pilkington if afraid his reader’s won’t be able to figure things out for themselves and need everything spelled out in black and white. This comes across as very clumsy and awkward at points. If Pilkington was new to the world of writing and this was his first effort all of this could be forgiven. However, according to his website he has had material broadcast on the BBC radio and ITV television. He was also longlisted for the 2004 London Book Fair Lit Idol competition. He should know a bit better then.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I thought The One You Love was a decent effort at writing a fast paced, page turner of a crime novel. Pilkington has the suspense and tension down to a fine art. The One You Love is a compelling read. I will probably read the other two novels in the series for continuity if nothing else. Pilkington need to work a bit more on exposition and realise his readers don’t need everything spelled out in black and white. There was too much tell and not enough show in The One You Love.
RATING
