Thank you to the publishers for this early review copy of Eve's latest book - One. I have read and loved Eve's two previous books - The Waiting Rooms and Off Target. So I started this book with the highest of expectations and I am very pleased to report that it most certainly lived up to them. The question as you read is always - would our country do this? Would the world do this? How much can be hidden? Can you ever survive if you set out to expose what is happening? This is a tense thriller, that you will simply want to read in one sitting. Very cleverly weaves in current issues to the plot to keep it grounded in the - would they? could they scenarios? Very happy to recommend all three of Eve's books - which by the way are standalone so buy and read in any order! So about book 4 - when do I get my hands on this please?

I thoroughly enjoyed reading One - a scary, Margaret Atwoodesque projection of our future under climate change. It’s an entertaining but also thought-provoking read. It would make a great movie! Thanks Eve!

She has truly outdone herself with this one! Eve Smith’s ‘One’ is a masterpiece of dystopia that draws its power from its disturbing relevance and likelihood. Like the best tales of future doom, it spins the yarn just a bit further on from where we currently are. The story is set in a near future Britain, brought to its knees by the climate crisis, which is ruled by an eco-friendly Mother Earth party who has overturned the traditional government (me: “Yay?”) and taken drastic measures to bring its population in line with what the planet can handle. Resources are strictly allocated, wastefulness is punished, a strict one child policy in place. There are vast green belts, eco-friendly solutions have been found all round, exploitative and destructive industries dismantled, sacrifices been made, powered by effective propaganda that even got me at some point, even though I had considered myself made street smart by my East German heritage. Eve nearly got me. “Hey, apart from some of the measures, I quite like what they have achieved”, I texted her, a few chapters in, and Eve just chuckled knowingly, as much as one can chuckle in a text message. Kai, the main character, is a big believer in the new world order, too. She is loyal to the party, although her job is not an easy one: she enforces the one-child policy by showing up on the door step of folks whose monitored hormone level indicate illegal pregnancies, to firmly direct them to abortion clinics. She is trained to deal with the tears and the begging. Sacrifices must be made for the Greater Good. Until one day a report pops up on her desk, involving her own parents, and suddenly she finds herself on the other side of the line of power. Trying to find her lost sister leads her into the ugly underbelly of her world, shattering all she ever held true, and towards the true corruption of the fabrics holding her society together, but also into the humanity of those living in the margins. A lot of research has gone into Eve’s work, too. She didn’t have to go too far from the speculative, either – the One Child Policy in her dystopian Britain is closely modelled on China’s, down to euphemistic terminology such as “reduction”, to remove an “excess” (twin) in utero. She interviewed Shen Yang, an “excess” child and survivor of China’s One Child Policy, and author of “More than one child”, which is now firmly on my TBR. However, Eve has managed to do the tricky bit beautifully – working her research into a coherent, gripping narrative without coming across like a student who is cramming related and unrelated material in her exams just to show off how much revision she’s done. She elegantly weaves those details into the story: I absolutely loved the tiny details, like a submerged Skegness whose underwater church bells still ring in a storm. ‘One’ is a nailbiting, breathtaking eco-thriller much in the vein of Black Mirror, mixed with the old classics like ‘Logan’s Run’ and ‘Soylent Green’, that had me on the edge of my seat the entire time. Imaginative, believable, complex and absolutely chilling, with elements that are already happening today and are just escalated in her story: the exploitation, mistreatment and murder of migrants (*stares in Suella*). As such, ‘One’ is at the very least a fantastic read, and at the worst comes as a stark warning. A book I can’t wait to recommend in my local branch.

Really loved the world, the female lead characters and the way Eve was able to pack so much into a singular book. I was hooked from the beginning and loved the twists and turns of the story. Would highly recommend as its a quick, captivating and thought provoking read!

An easy 5 stars for me. This is a belter of a novelas the subject is not unbelievable. One law, one child actually happened in China. So not unbelievable at all. Eve Smith is a consummate writer who leaves nothing to the imagination. Her books are gripping from start to finish and I would highly