Second Life
A Novel
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3.7 • 23 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
Julia’s life is comfortable, if unremarkable, until her sister’s brutal murder opens old wounds. She finds solace in her sister’s best friend, Sophie, but when Sophie reveals the extent of her sister’s online life, Julia becomes convinced that the truth about her death lies deep in the dark, sordid world of online chatrooms and internet sex.
What begins as Julia’s search for the truth about her sister quickly turns into an exploration of herself and her own desires. After all, the internet is her playground, and why be just one thing when you can be as many as you like? What could possibly go wrong? After all, it’s only cybersex, isn’t it? No one’s going to get hurt.
But then she meets the dark and mysterious Lukas in an online chat room, and things begin to get very dangerous indeed.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
With its lust-fueled plot and dramatic mind games, Second Life set our pulses racing in more ways than one. The novel’s feisty heroine, Julia, reminded us of Gone Girl’s Amy—hard to love, but seductively dark and complicated. When Julia’s sister is murdered, she decides to launch her own investigation, stepping out of her middle-class comfort zone into a thinly veiled underworld of anonymous hookups and danger. As he did with his bestseller Before I Go to Sleep, S. J. Watson uses sinister plot twists to keep us on high alert. His novel raises disturbing questions about the ease of creating alternate identities in the digital age.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Julia Wilding, the narrator of bestseller Watson's overstuffed second novel (after 2011's Before I Go to Sleep), lives a comfortable middle-class life in London with her husband, Hugh, a cardiac surgeon, and their adopted son, 13-year-old Connor. In Julia's younger and wilder days she's a recovering alcoholic she was an art photographer, but now she's content to take family portraits. Then tragedy strikes. Julia's younger sister, Kate, is murdered in Paris, and she throws herself into catching Kate's killer. Though the sisters used to be close, a difficult childhood and Kate's often unpredictable ways came between them, but not before Julia and Hugh stepped in to care for Kate's son Connor is actually their nephew. Julia's quest for answers leads her to a sleazy online dating website, where she initially masquerades as Kate and meets a mysterious man, Lukas, who may or may not have known her sister. Soon she's embroiled with Lukas, as well as with Kate's roommate, Anna, both of whom have the requisite secrets, which are unspooled at a glacial pace.
Customer Reviews
Second Life
Very unsatisfying ending! Nowhere near as good as her first novel: Before I GoTo Sleep.
Excellent
The more you read, the better it gets. Bravo!
Disappointing Read
This novel is slow moving and quite frankly- dull. Having read the author's work previous I had expectations that were not met. The ending is unsatisfactory and the climax of the story anti-climatic.
I do NOT recommend this read.