The Only Child his is a debut for S. Englefield and the first outing for his DI, Jennifer Stone.

Amelia Simpson is a 20-something woman who inherited a large sum of money when her parents died in a car crash when she was only a young girl. We learn that she used some of the money to set up as a florist and move to the Isle of Wight, where her elderly grandmother still lives. When we meet her, she’s living with her horrible boyfriend Sam (Lord knows why, he’s an absolutely lazy, rude, horror who has lived off her for the last 6 years or so), and her cat, James. She has some local friends, Megan, who also seems to be awful (though not sure we’re meant to think that), and Maria, who seems to be the only nice person in town, and who helps her in the shop. So immediately it’s obvious that our Amelia is either a terrible judge of character or she has very, very low self-esteem. Workwise, Amelia has been having some issues with her shop; a couple of episodes of vandalism which she puts down to being the work of Kirstie – another awful person – who owns a competing florist just down the road. All sounds rather stressful, however then it gets worse and people dear to Amelia start to be bumped off – she can only think of one person who could be behind it, but even they couldn’t go that far… could they?

I enjoyed this book, although I did have a few niggles with it, which I’ll get to shortly. First off though I liked the premise, and the shock-factor – top tip: don’t read this if you get attached to your characters, as they probably won’t last too long – and I enjoyed the dynamics between most of the characters involved. I liked DI Jenn Stone; she’s a funny, relatable character, although the constant letting down of her child and her subsequent justification of it was unacceptable and uncomfortable (and yes, I would think the same way of an unreliable dad) – although this was addressed later in the book.

I think my biggest issue with this book was actually elements of the author’s writing style. While very much engaging and well-written in many areas, there were some elements that grated on me; actions were always follow with facial expressions or tone, and dialogue tags were used too much for my liking. It interrupted the flow of the scenes and felt a bit stilted. However, that is my personal preference, and keeping in mind it is a debut novel, it’s bearable, and I expect that as the author finds more confidence this will improve and he will trust more in his characters ability to tell the story. My other bugbear was the characters were a bit too cartoony. Sam was just awful – there wasn’t a single redeeming feature as to why Amelia would stay with him. The main ‘baddie’ was seriously unhinged and she didn’t seem to have any redeeming features either except a nice smile given once towards the end of the book, so it was hard to empathise with her (even though I’ve been in a similar family situation to her – one of the reasons I thought I’d review this book!). For me, characters are always better in shades of grey than black and white – it makes them more human, more believable, and gives the reader a more enjoyable experience trying to understand them – than someone just being downright unpleasant. I loved Amelia’s gran though, and Jennifer – both strong female characters with a dash of humour – more of this please.

Back to the good stuff, something this author is excellent at is throwing in a red herring or twenty. I was back and forth on this one with who was the culprit, and it was cleverly written, although the method one person applied towards getting involved required me to suspend my disbelief higher than I ever have before, and I’m pretty sure you’ll know that bit when you get to it. I don’t think that was realistic and there was a better way to do that in my opinion (perhaps they met a few years later?) All in all though it has all the elements of a good thriller, and it was entertaining trying to work out ‘whodunnit’, or rather ‘howtheydunnit’ as the book progressed.

This is a great holiday read and looks to be the start of an interesting new series. I was given an advance copy of this book and this is my honest review – a few grumbles from me, but overall, a great debut and an exciting protagonist. I look forward to seeing how the series, and the author, develop.

4/5

About the Author: S.Englefield

Find out more about S. Englefield by visiting his Goodreads profile: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/53411553.S_Englefield