Book Review: Second Life - SJ Watson

SJ Watson, author of hit debut novel Before I Go To Sleep , returns with Second Life, another thrilling tale of dark paths, bad decisions and the seedy, rather terrifying side of online liaisons.

The difficult second novel doesn't seem to have presented a huge problem for SJ Watson. The author of best-selling debut novel Before I Sleep  plunges the reader into a pretty grisly and gripping world from a very early stage of Second Life and the whole book is a real page-turning thriller from start to finish. It would be very easy to see this being adapted to the big screen like its predecessor.

Book Review: Crossfire: The Battle of the Four Courts, 1916

Crossfire: The Battle of the Four Courts, 1916
Paul O'Brien

With only two years to go to the centenary of the 1916 Rising, the shelves of bookshops are already packed to the brim full of a wide selection of titles about that momentous and defining week in Ireland's history.

Having already written two books on 1916 - and with more in the pipeline - Paul O'Brien's expertise on the period and fascination with it shines through in Crossfire: The Battle of the Four Courts, 1916. The first in a series of books about the rebellion called 1916 In Focus, Crossfire is an on-the-ground, nerve-wracking, detailed account of the rising in the Four Courts and its environs day by day from Easter Monday 1916, the day the Proclamation of the Irish Republic was read by Pádraig Pearse, to five days later when the order was given to cease fire.