“The Echo Wife,” by Sarah Gailey (Tor Books)
In Sarah Gailey’s, “The Echo Wife,” Evelyn is a brilliant scientist, revered in the scientific community for the work she has done in cloning. She has found a way to grow near-perfect replicas of people in only 100 days. However, the clones she creates are meant to be used for very specific purposes. They were never designed to live regular lives as regular people.
Evelyn’s relationship with her husband Nathan, also a scientist, has been on the rocks. Suspecting him of cheating, she follows him one day and discovers he has another home. When she knocks on the door, she is greeted by a woman with her own face. Evelyn’s husband has been living a double life with her clone Martine, whom he has created to be a better version of her.
Now, Nathan is dead, and one of them has killed him. Together, Evelyn and Martine embark on a quest to cover the whole thing up.
“The Echo Wife” is a unique, thrilling adventure, with truly unexpected twists and turns the whole way through. Lovers of science fiction will no doubt delight in the intricacies of Evelyn’s work laid about by Gailey, who also crafts a compelling tension between Evelyn and Martine as they work to find common ground. Despite sharing the same DNA, Martine was programmed very differently than Evelyn, and working together proves to have its challenges.
At times the plot feels a little slow, but on the whole, Gailey has created an enjoyable, edge-of-your-seat tale that will keep readers on their toes.
