This post was originally published at Novelicious.com and is now at WritingTipsOasis.com. WritingTipsOasis.com acquired Novelicious.com in June 2022.
Reviewed by Susan Lobban
Beth is playing Scrabble with her father one night, when suddenly she must hide just like the drills she has been practising. However when the strangers find her and ask “what is your name, your real name?”, she is forced to face that she has been living with evil all this time rather than being protected from it. Beth is really Kit Lannigan and she was abducted when she was 6 and Mel is not really her father. In the years since her abduction she has pushed her real family to the back of her mind and when she is discovered by the FBI she does as her “father” has told her and deletes damning evidence.
Kit is now 21 and goes by the name Kick, which certainly suits her new outlook in life. Disillusioned with life and looking for danger around every corner. Kick is well trained in all aspects of self defense and ever since she naively wiped out her captors pornographic files she feels she must look out for children everywhere. When two children go missing in the same area in the same month, alarm bells go off straight away but then the mysterious Bishop turns up who is well aware of Kick’s skills and needs her help to find these children. Little does Kick know that this case will lead directly to into her own terrifying past.
One Kick is my first of this author and initially I thought from the first few chapters that I had discovered another great thriller writer to add to my must reads. Unfortunately, this was not the case. I did know from the synopsis that the storyline involved child abduction and pornography, which I usually approach with caution, but I have read others that have dealt with similar in a sensitive way. One Kick, however was too in depth and graphic for me and really gave me the creeps, which was repelling rather than gripping. Kick was the one saving grace in that I did want to see how her abduction had affected her and her family, and do think her resulting adulthood probably was fairly realistic. Her immense guilt for leaving the FBI with very little evidence against her captor leads conveniently into her search for two recently missing children. It is then that I found the path being followed very distressing to follow. Many a time I was tempted to quit the book altogether but persisted to little avail and I won’t be returning for book two.4/10