Second Life by S.J. Watson

 

 

Following her sister Kate's murder in Paris, Julia's search to find out what happened leads her online, to the websites Kate used to find men for internet sex. On one of them Julia meets Lukas, but is he all that he seems?

 

After reading and loving the author's first novel, Before I Go To Sleep, I have been eagerly awaiting his follow-up. Unfortunately I have been left feeling disappointed. The story is very slow to start with, in fact I almost gave up on it about a third of the way through and if this had been by a writer who was new to me I would have. I also found Julia annoying; perhaps she's supposed to be but all this meant was that by the time the novel did improve half way into the story, I didn't really care what happened to her. 

 

Thankfully the second half of the book had a much quicker pace with twists and turns, even if some of these were unbelievable to the extreme. At this stage, I found the book difficult to put down. I can't say too much about the ending obviously without spoiling it for others but this also left me feeling a bit let down. Maybe if the majority of Second Life had been set at the pace of the last 50% I would have enjoyed it more; as it is this just felt like lots of different ideas and styles of book all melded into one.

Thanks to Transworld and Netgalley for a copy in return for an honest review.

 

Rating: 2 out of 5