Evelyn Caldwell is intelligent and driven. Her husband Nathan has been with her since working as a research assistant dreaming of changing the world. Clones are tools and she is the revolutionary who has uncovered "conditioning" and programming to create a clone that has memories, desires and even scars like the human they created to mimic. Evelyn is at the top of her career and that drive has let her marriage fall into second place.

Second place is not good enough for her husband Nathan. He uses Evelyn's life work to create a clone of his wife that he thinks improves Evelyn. Martine is the housewife Nathan always wished Evelyn could be. Unfortunately for Nathan, Evelyn's breakthroughs on programming might not be as ironclad as she thought. Maybe a clone who was programmed to be docile and not to challenge or question her husband doesn't like that trait. Maybe, clones can change...

I have taken some time from when I finished The Echo Wife to writing this review. I felt the need to adequately digest this book and understand my feelings. In short: I enjoyed this book but it is lacking something.

While the pace of the first half of this novel was incredible it slowed down drastically after the "incident" that brings together Evelyn and Martine. Additionally, Evelyn is written to be dislikeable. We as readers need to understand why Nathan created Martine. Why he was driven there because of Evelyn. However, she is so morose and in my opinion rude that it is hard to empathize with her. This book is sprinkled with memories of Evelyn's childhood that attempt to rationalize the person she is - why she is so brash - but the backstory feels forced and exaggerated in later chapters.

If I was asked about this book I would say I it is okay but not at the top of my list. The idea was interesting and there were certainly some interesting twists even to the end. However, there were parts that were overdone such as the backstories and Evelyn was obnoxious many times throughout the book. Additionally, she kept saying she didn't understand how Martine was able to "buck her programming" as well as her interesting biological situation. This kept coming up throughout the book but wasn't explained. There was a real opportunity for either another twist or some crumb to give the readers before the novel ended.

Tor publishes The Echo Wife early next year (like a lot of things in the book world, I think this domestic novel/sci-fi/thriller was delayed by COVID). Anyway, the ARC was a quick read of 225 pages ... I got it done in a couple sittings . A tale of science, cloning and deep betrayal. I reached a point, about halfway through, where I couldn't see how the story could go any further ... so I had to read further. The author was very concerned with the expressing of emotions (and more emotions and more emotions). Anyway, when the pace picks up, after the lull around the middle, the story is fleshed out in SO many interesting ways. Any college Lit class would have so much fun analyzing the outcome!!! One I hope to buy and have autographed.

The Echo Wife took a couple of chapters to fully grab me, but after that it was pitch-perfect and didn't let go for a second. This book has it all: clones, identity, marriage, science, gender, trauma, humor, twists, and a razor-sharp voice, and I hope it will be as big of a breakout for Sarah Gailey as it deserves to be. I know I'll certainly be telling people about it and recommending for best of year lists!

"𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘴 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘳𝘶𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴. 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘵'𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴."⁣
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Thank you @NetGalley and @TorBooks for a free eARC in exchange for an honest review! ⁣
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗰𝗵𝗼 𝗪𝗶𝗳𝗲 𝘄𝗶𝗹𝗹 𝗯𝗲 𝗮𝘃𝗮𝗶𝗹𝗮𝗯𝗹𝗲 𝟬𝟮/𝟭𝟲/𝟮𝟬𝟮𝟭!⁣
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𝗠𝘆 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄⁣
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Oh man, this one gave me The House of the Scorpion and Splice vibes in all the best ways! If you are intimidated by sci-fi because you feel overwhelmed with jargon and world building, fear not, this is your book!⁣
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This plot tackles the idea if human clones are humans or something inferior, and what rights they have. Evelyn is of the opinion clones have very short term practical purposes: body doubles, organ farms, and research subjects. Imagine her surprise when she finds out Martine is an absolute contradiction. ⁣
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I love how as Evelyn digs herself into a deeper and deeper hole with Martine, we are given glimpses into how this all happened in the first place. The information is provided in a suspenseful manner and I couldn't help but read it in one weekend. I was just that compelled to find out how it ended. There were a few plot holes that made my head tilt, but nothing so terrible I couldn't look over.⁣
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If there was a sequel to this book I'd buy it in a heartbeat. I think it's set up extremely well to be some sort of series as Evelyn continues her research of Martine and Violet. ⁣

Author #Sarah Gailey has written a wonderful thriller.Compared to Big Little Lies, Killing Eve and Westwood. It might make you think twice about technology after a chill runs down your body.This will be on my personal blog maddie_approves_book_reviews closer to release date.
Thank you,
#Netgalley, #Sarah Gailey, and #Macmillan

This book does not go at all as I expected, but that’s a good thing. I can’t share much of anything else with you without spoiling the book, so I’ll leave it at that.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an ARC. This review contains my honest, unbiased opinion.

This was a very unusual and unique story. Evelyn is a scientist of considerable renown. Her research is into cloning. Her husband Nathan was having an affair so they divorced. Then Evelyn discovers that his new wife, Martine, is a clone of her! It is like they are identical twins! Martine phones Evelyn in a panic, she has killed Nathan! From this point on, the story is thrilling, gripping, full of suspense. Although it is science fiction, I found that it was believable and the science was understandable.
I voluntarily read and reviewed an advanced copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

Martine is a genetically cloned replica made from Evelyn Caldwell’s award-winning research. She’s patient and gentle and obedient. She’s everything Evelyn swore she’d never be.

And she’s having an affair with Evelyn’s husband.

WOW! This was simply a great book.
I really cant tell you the last time I read a book this great.
The premise was flooring, the plot was mind blowing.
And I couldn't have enjoyed better characters for one.

This was simply GREAT!

So thank you NetGalley, Publisher & Author for this advanced copy. .

A super original novel! If you mix psychological thriller, family drama and sci-fi, with a strong Orphan Black twist - all together this is what you get! Engaging, dark, satisfying.

This was one of most odd and enjoyable books I've read in awhile. The secrets in this small lab were aplenty and I could not foresee any of them. The idea of cloning is something that seems so far off and ridiculous, but after reading this book, it's probably closer than I could ever imagine. Although the book falls into science fiction, it's also a story about love, trust and friendship. Links coming soon.

This book is told in first person from wronged wife Evelyn’s point of view, though I found it hard to find much sympathy for her. Nathan, Evelyn’s husband, has used her research for his own personal ends, namely creating a more perfect wife for whom he is the center of attention. Evelyn is too busy with her research to pay any attention to him to the extent that she had no idea what he was doing or what was going on in his life.

The book felt a little passive to me. When we join the story, Evelyn has already found out what Nathan has done and confronted Martine. Evelyn is trying to figure it all out in her head while relating small bits of information to the reader as we go through the motions of her daily life. Every so often there were flashbacks to the past, which also felt like I was just stuck in Evelyn’s head.

I loved the concept of this story, especially the subsequent events that were actually related on the page as the story continues. Watching Martine’s understanding of the world she has been brought into was a revelation. The extent of Evelyn’s betrayal is also rather mind boggling. It was just missing the melodrama and emotion that I would expect given the situation.

This book was super interesting and very different than any others I have read in recent memory. Evelyn is an award winning researcher whose line of work is cloning. Turns out, her ex husband has been dabbling in some cloning himself! What begins as a tale of husband who had an affair, quickly escalates into a body, a cloned wife substitute who has a secret of her own, and it just continues from there.
I enjoyed reading the cloning details. I enjoyed the twists that popped up at times. However, I am just not finding myself gushing about this one as much as other early readers are.
Some of the plot holes got to me - why aren't more people asking about the missing husband/business man? How does he then just slip back into daily life no questions asked when there are obviously things amiss? The extent to which he had a secret life while married - based on the backyard discovery - seemed a bit of a stretch. The assistant that resigns and knows too much just stays quietly away...hmmmm. Maybe I just overthought parts of the plot, but it bugged me and felt like things were left unanswered/undeveloped.
I liked the ending, and I did appreciate the backstory on Evelyn and her childhood - it put alot of things in perspective for her character.
A solid read, definitely enjoyable.
Thankful for the super early ARC!

I read and reviewed this title for Booklist. The review will be published through my editors at Booklist sometime in the next few months.

Sarah Gailey's The Echo Wife reminds me so much of Mary Shelley's Frankenstein crossed with a domestic thriller in the sense of examining the question: how much responsibility do we carry for our creations?

Evelyn Caldwell's research leads to genetically cloned replicas of people, and her entire life is shattered when she discovers that her husband stole her research and created her clone - a "better" version of herself so that he could have what he wanted out of their marriage. Evelyn is a workaholic who prefers to work to starting a family, so when she discovers that Nathan, her husband, is wanting a divorce because he has created an Evelyn clone named Martine who is everything Evelyn couldn't be for him - including being the mother of his child. The twist in general domestic thrillers usually ends here, but this is where the story actually begins.

Clones, by design, should not be able to get pregnant, but Martine clearly is carrying Nathan's child. This is only the survace of the story, and it dives deeper and deeper into uncanny territory the more Evelyn gets to know Martine. Everything takes a complete turn when Evelyn receives a call from Martine saying she has killed Nathan. The only way the two decide to cover this up as Martine's existence, and pregnancy, are illegal, is to create a clone of Nathan. As they bury and re-bury Nathan's body in the backyard, Evelyn and Martine realize they have only scratched the surface of what Nathan has done.

I loved this so much. I've loved every single book Gailey has written, and I'm sure I'll love everything they'll ever write. They have such a knack for taking a trope, running with it, and twisting it so that you have to continue reading to see how everything unfolds and resolves. This is one of my favorite science fiction and thriller books I've read in a bit, and I'll be recommending this one to everyone on its release in February. And I'm sorry you have to wait that long to get your hands on this, but believe me, it's well worth your time and consideration, because I hope, like me, you'll continue thinking about the nature of personal responsibility in the aftermath of creating something.

Thank you to Netgalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.
This book was wild. It was weird. It was interesting. I requested it after I saw on Twitter that Gailey wrote it as “punishment for Dollhouse” which.... I would consider successful. It was a really really interesting book, and I really enjoyed reading it. The science is intense, but never so much so that you feel lost. The characters are fascinating and ruthless, and I’ve seen clone narratives handled in much much worse ways. I’d consider this book a very strong success for what the author set out to do. Of course, occasionally the writing felt a little bit repetitive, and the ending felt a little bit too “easy” for me (ya know what I mean?) but other than hat, I don’t really have any intense gripes about this book at all. It was a wild read, a good time, and I definitely will be recommending it to people!

Extremely intriguing story with rather unlikeable characters. The ethical aspects of the cloning work are fascinating, and I'll definitely recommend it to readers for that aspect alone. There were plenty of twists to move the story along, but I wasn't sure who I was rooting for at any given point.

This book asks lots of interesting questions about identity, personality, morality, and genetics, and resists giving easy, pat answers to any of them. Evelyn and Martine are in trouble. The man each of them can claim as “husband” is lying dead in the kitchen. They are not natural allies, in spite of being nearly genetically identical. They have to work together to cover up a mistake that threatens to reveal to the world facts that can’t, shouldn’t exist. Gailey invites us to consider a world where clone technology is almost perfect, and the creations of that technology are regarded as little more than cattle. What happens when a clone rejects her programming? And what happens when a woman can’t resist the influence of her upbringing? Recommended for fans of Black Mirror and Orphan Black.

An incredible new book from Sarah Gailey, reminiscent of Orphan Black and Frankenstein. Evelyn, an award-winning scientist developing advanced cloning techniques is horrified to discover her estranged husband has not only stolen her proprietary research, but used it to create a "more perfect" version of her: a clone named Martine. Her horror only increases when this de-clawed, clone version of herself calls in desperate need of Evelyn's help. Everything she loathes most about Martine is everything her ex-husband most wanted to change about her. But as the two are forced to team up to maintain a series of potentially life- and career-destroying secrets, Evelyn is forced to confront both the flaws and humanity of someone who, in any other circumstance, she would have considered nothing more than a disposable specimen.

Thought provoking and incredibly unsettling in its twists and turns. The Echo Wife is another knockout book exploring the depths of humanity and the complexity of interpersonal relationships from Sarah Gailey. Have I mentioned I love her writing? Because I love her writing. And her storytelling. And her ability to craft an incredible, unsettling but believable narrative.

I read this as a domestic thriller. Not being a sci-fi reader and definitely not interested in AI beings infiltrating our lives I didn't let that effect my decision to read it. AND WOW WHAT A MESSED up ride.
Can you imagine your husband taking a second wife RIGHT under your nose and the worst part is you created her and she is you. the best version of you. Now Martine has killed Nathan. Who does she call, his first wife Evelyn, her creator. When Nathan becomes a crime that needs solved what is Evelyn to do when the murder is an illegal being???
So many twist and turns, Sarah Gailey is the 2021's Blake Crouch

The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey made me really consider that term: “the other woman.” Other. College English classes asked me to consider: who is the Other? And they made it a verb: to Other, to render something that could be taken in terms of its similarities and instead treating it only in terms of its differences. Not my culture, not my race, not my gender, not my in-group. Not me.

The Echo Wife’s “other woman,” Martine, is the Other by asymptotically vanishing margins. She has the same culture, race, gender, and in-group as the protagonist, Evelyn. She has the same husband. She even has the same DNA.

Martine is not Evelyn’s twin, but her clone. The only difference between them, besides thirty-odd years of life, is Martine’s programming: she was created to be better. But who could be better than Evelyn, a woman who in the first chapter is receiving a coveted award for advancing scientific progress in the field of cloning?

Well, Evelyn doesn’t think there are many people better than her, but her husband Nathan isn’t on the same page. He has different ideas of what a wife should be. And he may be less talented than Evelyn, at least according to her, but he still thinks he can do better. His vision is smaller, his insights less profound, but he burns with a similar zeal. Instead of inventing a whole field of cloning, he steals Evelyn’s research. And what he accomplishes is small: it’s the size of a single-family home. It’s the misogynist fantasy of an ideal, obedient wife. It’s the size of the boxes in which he thinks women belong.

Nathan’s decisions set off cascading disasters for Evelyn, and then for Martine. Separately, they are almost certain to destroy each other. But if they join forces, they might be able to survive. And—once they start trying—they might even be able to get exactly what they want, not just what they need. But does Martine, so thoroughly programmed, actually want anything? And conversely, is there any limit on Evelyn’s desire and ambition, already more important than anything and anyone from her life before?

It’s a clever conflict Gailey sets up, not just different needs but entirely different capacities for need between her mirror-image characters. Martine is a foil, but also a cypher for Evelyn, revealing Evelyn’s vulnerabilities and flaws as surely as she brings out her strengths.

In particular, she reveals how shockingly naïve Evelyn can be. She misses huge issues in her most intimate relationships, both professional and private, and consistently fails to take responsibility when those relationships fall apart. I appreciate seeing a narrator with this kind of flaw since it’s both fitting—given her upbringing—and humanizing. Evelyn has all the answers when she’s in the lab; outside, she’s mortal and fallible as anyone else.



Even without the answers, Evelyn takes charge of Martine and all but goads her into developing a personality. It’s strong character work in a remarkably short novel, and doesn’t fall into any of the clone cliches I’ve come to loathe, trite declarations of individuality that don’t go further into what individuality even means. Gailey asks those questions relentlessly, of all of her characters. Even Nathan.

My biggest issue with this book is that, in the middle, Nathan disappears as an urgent problem. Sure, he’s still a problem, but mostly in the moral sense. He’s an unprincipled dick and his wives have to grapple with that—emotionally. Evelyn and Martine are only shown to be dealing with the personal and ethical ramifications of his choice to make a clone, not the immediacy of someone having a meeting with him. There’s a token, mostly offstage effort to provide excuses, but it’s clear that Gailey isn’t very interested in the minutia of the murder.

Which makes it a bit odd that this is presented as a thriller. There are very suspenseful scenes, yes, but I can’t say much of the plot surprised me. That’s all right. It wasn’t the twists that impress so much as the way Gailey explores the concepts she sets up.

The issues she gets into are complex and compelling. The central issue is that of Evelyn’s marriage to Nathan, the dissolution of which sets off the whole book. Since Evelyn is our narrator, we get her post-mortem on the relationship very clearly. But further dissection reveals the real and messy guts of the matter. Evelyn constantly belittles her ex-husband, impugning everything from his intelligence to his neediness. As the book goes on, it’s not clear that Nathan was needy—it seems like he just had needs. He was smart enough to make a clone, and his immorality is increasingly matched by Evelyn’s own as she goes further and further outside the bounds of decency to get what she wants.

But lest we view this as a straightforward case of hypocrisy and self-deception, Gailey gives us tidbits of Evelyn’s childhood, which was steeped in neglect and abuse. The messed up family dynamics are Evelyn’s “programming,” and the book asks us whether we are the clones of our parents, and whether we must adhere to their programming. Nature vs. nurture has always been complicated, and it’s all the more so when applied to specific cases like this.

The Echo Wife also asks whether we can parent ourselves if our parents are unwilling or unable to do it. Evelyn is repeatedly called up on to “parent” Martine, making very clear how she has (and has not) been “parenting” herself in the absence of any good role models. Seeing oneself as “other” makes it obvious how we are often either much kinder or much crueler to others than to ourselves. “Would you say the same things about your friends as you’re saying about yourself?” therapists often ask. Well, Evelyn doesn’t have any friends. All she has is Martine. How she grows to treat her clone is a very interesting meditation on how two people can have such similar and such very different ideas of self vs. other.

The ending is bleak and sad and grim. Everyone gets something approaching what they want, and all of it is undermined by hurt and selfishness. Nathan and Evelyn come out looking even uglier and meaner than they did in the beginning, which is a feat, given that the book starts with a bitter divorce, a profound ethics violation, an attempted murder, and a (different) completed murder. Only Martine seems to still have some morals intact, but her situation is not exactly what I’d call hopeful or happy. It’s dark, but more than that, it’s depressing. Which is harder to swallow these days.

That’s not The Echo Wife’s fault. You definitely should read this if you want to think, be challenged, and explore the sprawling consequences of biology, cloning, and human research. You absolutely should read this if you want to experience a subtly unreliable narrator, the thrill of unease, and intense psychological drama. But be warned that this is a product of the times and not an antidote: it does not offer much hope or resolution. The Echo Wife is very much like our protagonists: it shows us what is only barely “other” in order to show us ourselves.