Review: Replica

Title: Replica
Author: Lexi Revellian
Nationality: British
Year: 2011
Publisher: Hoxton Press
Length: 200+ pages
Rating: 8/10
Summary: Lexi Revellian does it again

The outline

Unassertive secretary Beth is persuaded to become a guinea pig in an experiment at the government lab where she works. But when things go wrong and she is accidentally duplicated, both Beths find that their lives are in danger.

Sample

"I'm not going to do it, Professor." She picked up her handbag.
He saw she meant what she said, and the spark seemed to go out of him; he sighed deeply. With a visible effort, he squared his shoulders, smiled and patted her arm. "Quite understood, Beth, I hope I haven't pressured you unduly. You toddle off home. It'll keep till tomorrow afternoon when the Fubars come back."
His hand went to the on/off switch and hovered reluctantly over it. As he stooped, she saw with a pang the lines in his middle-aged face, obvious now the animation had left it, worse after a week of late nights working in the lab.
She felt mean.
"I guess an hour wouldn't really make any difference."
She took out her ear studs, removed her watch and lay down inside the machine.

The verdict

A second novel is always a tricky prospect. It’s difficult for an author to find the right balance between creating something familiar enough to appeal to readers of the first novel, while making it original enough that it gives readers something fresh and new.

Thankfully, with Replica Lexi Revellian has achieved just that. Replica retains all the fun and excitement of Remix while swapping rockstars and rocking horses for MI5 and sci-fi technology. Like Remix, it’s in a genre all of its own – a quirky fast-paced adventure story with a likeable, realistic female lead and a bad boy love interest, that never tries to take itself too seriously. It’s a kind of Bridget Jones meets The Bourne Identity.

It’s a real pageturner that you won’t want to put down. In my opinion, it wasn’t quite as good as Remix, but is still one of the best books of the year so far.