Falls the Shadow

Gaither’s SF thriller derives its emotional power from the relationship between 16-year-old Cate Benson and her maddening, defiant older sister. After Cate’s young sister, Violet, dies, she is replaced by a clone (also named Violet). Cate has spent the years following her sister’s death torn between resentment at her new sibling’s wild-child antics, protectiveness toward a family member demonized by anti-cloning protestors and sensationalist media, and the conviction that “Old-Violet” and “New-Violet” are two different people, despite her parents’ insistence that they are one and the same. “I still love her. And part of me hates her for that.” A clichéd plot to create an army of brainwashed clones drives the action; the antagonists remain one-note. Cate’s romance with an anti-cloning advocate’s son is similarly rote, but her love interest’s dynamic with his informally adopted brother deepens the themes of sibling love and unconventional (but no less real) familial relationships. As Cate and the brothers search for a missing and volatile Violet, they suffer real losses in chilling confrontations with eerily familiar adversaries. A solid debut whose gut-punch ending leaves room for a sequel. Ages 12–up. Agent: Sara Megibow, Nelson Literary. (Sept.)