Ekaterine Nikas’ first novel is purported to be romantic suspense, but The Divided Child, while definitely a mystery, can hardly be considered a romance. And as for the mystery, well, there definitely is that. Lots of it, in fact.

Christine Stewart is on vacation alone on the Greek Island of Corfu. As the book begins, she is reading a letter from her father, telling her he doesn’t want to see her again. Why? Well, we’re never really told, just like we’re never really told much about her. Several chapters into the book, she mentions to someone that she sells software in the U.S., which is the first the reader hears of it. In fact, her father’s abandonment itself is something that only comes up when it’s convenient – for example, at the end, when the hero approaches her, and she shies away from real romantic involvement because of it. However, a few words of reassurance are more than enough to overcome her worries, and all is forgotten.

But I digress. Christine meets a young English boy named Michael on the beach, and shortly thereafter saves his life when a tunnel collapses nearly on top of them. In quick succession, she meets several people who will become suspects as the plot unfolds: Michael’s stepmother Demetra, her brother Spiro, several servants, Michael’s paternal uncle Geoffrey, Michael’s late father’s lawyer, and the local Lieutenant of police. It seems that not everyone is convinced that Michael’s very wealthy father – who died just two months before – was the victim of either accident or suicide. Someone thinks he was murdered. And Michael may well be next.

Geoffrey is a man of secrets, but one thing is obvious: he cares very much for his nephew and would do anything to protect him. He’d even convince Christine to leave the island and remove herself from any danger. The problem is, Christine doesn’t want to leave Michael – or Geoffrey.

One of the main problems with this book is that it’s told in first person, which gives the reader little clue as to what anyone but the main character might be thinking. For a romance, this is a particularly unfortunate move, since we have no idea how the hero feels. Unfortunately, we aren’t given much in the way of information about the heroine, either. We don’t hear her thoughts most of the time, and we certainly aren’t given any insight into her heart, so all we have to go on are her words and her actions. And those aren’t very conclusive. In fact, judging simply by those, she’s a little dim, she has little patience and no trust – and a hair trigger temper. If you think you might not enjoy seeing the world through those kind of eyes, this is not the book for you.

Nikas’ other characters fared no better. Seen only through the eyes of the heroine, some of them seemed well thought out, if a bit one-dimensional, but others were purely cartoonish. Michael, who was supposed to be an endearing young boy, spoke with a caricature of an English accent and style, and was scripted in a way that reminded me of children in really bad commercials. He said things that would only be funny or realistic to someone who’s very out of touch with children. Meanwhile, our hero Geoffrey was even shorter-tempered than Christine, and in addition to being secretive, he had the habit of running hot and cold, which didn’t seem to faze the heroine a bit. All in all, they didn’t really act like people; they were like plot devices. While that may be bad in mystery, in romance it’s a novel-killer.

There are still other problems related to the limiting point of view choice. The author had an unfortunate habit of withholding useful information, and then mentioning it later as if it were something the reader already knew. If this were one instance, it would be easy to forgive as an editing mistake, but this was frequent enough to be a major disturbance: I spent a fair portion of reading time shuffling through the pages I’d already read, trying to figure out if I’d really actually already been told the information or not. And the answer was always “not.”

The sad part of this is that somewhere under the amateurish writing and plotting problems, there was a decent and complex mystery here. If Ms. Nikas ever learns to write convincing and sympathetic characters, I would be very interested in reading her books. If not, they will be, like this one, a definite “pass.”