Review: The answer to "What happened next?"
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 05 1, 2013
In a sequel to his taut thriller The One You Love, author Paul Pilkington brings back Emma Holden and her fiancé, Dan, as they try to figure out whether the harrowing nightmare of Dan's kidnapping has finally ended.Four weeks have passed since Dan's rescue from the kidnapper, and he and Emma try to proceed with normal life.  Their relationships with Emma's brother, Will, and her best friend, Lizzy, have gotten stronger as a result of the situation.  Lizzy, in particular, shares Dan's experience as the second victim of the kidnapper's insanity.  But now that Dan and Lizzy have come home safely with minimal injuries, the four friends just want to move on with their lives.Unfortunately someone won't let them.  A reporter pursues all four relentlessly for details about the kidnapping so he can write a feature article for his newspaper about the ordeal.  Despite the repeated brush-offs Emma, Dan, and their friends have given the reporter, he just won't back down.More disturbing than the reporter is the fact that Emma thinks she sees Stephen Meyers, her dead fanatic admirer.  But it couldn't be Stephen, she reassures herself.  After all, she saw Stephen's grave; his father took her there himself.  And yet as Emma tries to rebuild her life after Dan's kidnapping, something keeps tapping her sense of safety.  Even though Dan has returned and they're trying to jumpstart their plans for their wedding, something doesn't feel quite right.  Eventually Emma realizes that if she truly wants her life back, she has to find a way to get to the bottom of these eerie sightings of Stephen and also find a way to make sure the nosy reporter understands to stay way for good.Once again author Paul Pilkington builds drama and suspense in his plotline, which will keep readers up long past bedtime.  The One You Love moved from action highlight to highlight with barely a breath in between.  In The One You Fear, Pilkington gives his characters a chance to reflect on what they endured, leading to many conversations between the characters and more time to break down the basics of this life experience in those conversations.  Readers might feel, justifiably so, that The One You Fear contains less dramatic action, but the sequel matches its predecessor step for step in its ability to compel reader to keep turning pages.While The One You Love stands alone as a story and doesn't really require a sequel, Pilkington has created the "what happens next" phase with great success in The One You Fear.  Readers can consider The One You Fear a bonus to help them find out whether Emma and Dan finally do get to enjoy the life they envisioned.  I highly recommend The One You Fear.