Life is hardly a cabaret for Shaun McKenna and Harry Hannah. The two teenagers at the centre of Green Eyes, by Andrew O'Hare, are thrown together by fate and embark on a passionate love affair. But this is Northern Ireland, and McKenna is Catholic; Hannah Protestant. Although the love between the two boys never wavers, they find themselves in the middle of a maze of family strife, dark secrets and sectarian violence. The book's setting is fresh, giving O'Hare the opportunity to show his ear for Northern Irish idiom; much of the dialogue in this dialogue-driven story sounds truthful. A complex web of characters is spun with some craft, although much of the present-day action groans under the weight of dem dry bones in the closet. But there is a real sense of idyllic love under threat, which has you rooting for our heroes. The reader's sympathies are slicked by countless unsparing sex scenes, which might be eye opening but are always based in the boys' burning love. O'Hare has a clumsy way of dropping the pronoun from sentences with dialogue--very few instances of "he said" or "she said". He has a way to go before his style is perfected. And great stretches of the book are taken up with inane "banter" of the "Oooh, you are awful, McKenna," variety. But this oddly Irish blend of pillow-talk pap and deeply felt emotion is ultimately endearing. --Alistair Pegg