Beside Myself

“Sometimes I think I have made it up. Days come where it feels like the whole thing is a story in my head and there was never any swap and any game.”

No one believes Helen when she insists she isn’t Ellie, and suddenly, everything that used to be Helen’s—from her toys to her friends to her identity—now belongs to her sister. With those around her oblivious to her plight, the girl who used to be Helen loses her sense of self and withdraws into a spiral of behavioral problems, delinquency, and mental illness. In time, she’s not even sure of her memory of the switch.

Twenty-five years later, she receives a call that threatens to pull her back into her sister’s dangerous orbit. Will she take this chance to face her past?

Ann Morgan is the author of The World Between Two Covers, based on her yearlong journey around the world via books from every country. She continues to blog about her adventures with world literature at ayearofreadingtheworld.com. Morgan’s writing has also appeared in the Independent, the Financial Times, the Scotsman, BBC Culture, and the Guardian, among many others. She lives in London.