Caroline Bond is one of the most adept authors at involving her readers in the lives of her characters and bringing out personal empathy and emotion for the situations they find themselves in as previously found in her earlier books and One Split Second is no exception. The title is very apt as that's all it takes to change one, or in this instance, many lives irrevocably. The book starts with a heart-rending description of hospital staff paying their last respects to a patient who hasn't survived and whose organs are to be donated for the good of others. The tears were welling in my eyes by the second page and I'm sure many readers will be affected by this moving description. The opening chapters deal with a car crash involving teenagers, something that happens all too often unfortunately, and the immediate effects as the news starts to spread. Anxious parents attempt to contact their children and, eventually, the police identify the teenagers and the parents are taken to the hospital to await further news. Every one of them fearing the worst and hoping for the best. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of this book and discovering how the teenagers, if they survive, and their parents cope with the long-lasting effects, both physical and mental, of this horrendous accident.