Dead Ringer by Nicola Martin ★★★☆☆

Published : 27th February 2020

Publisher : Saraband

Format : Kindle, Audio, Paperback, Audio cd

Genre : Thriller

Synopsis

A PAIR OF DÖPPELGANGERS

A PACK OF LIES

The idea is simple, vain, exciting. Tap the app, upload a picture of yourself, find your lookalike. Set up a meeting to see whether you have anything else in common.

When Ella and Jem meet, the physical resemblance is uncanny, but their lives couldn't be more different.

One is from a tiny island in a deprived Northern community pretty much the back of beyond where she has no job, no boyfriend, limited prospects. The other is a Chelsea party girl, an aspiring actress living in a multimillion-pound mansion.

By all appearances, she's living a charmed life, but she's got some serious stuff to run away from.

Both of them have.

Can either hide in her double's skin? And at what cost? Will it solve any of the problems, or merely compound them?

My Review

Thank you Contraband for this advanced copy and Anne Cater for this blog tour spot.

Dead Ringer Is a story about two girls who meet over a popular app called MeetYourDouble.

It is designed to find all the people in the world that have signed up who look just like you, basically finding your doppelgänger in the world.

Ellie and Jen meet pretty early in the story, even though they both look scarily like each other Jem, from London is everything that Ellie is not. Loud, confident and loaded with plenty of cash. Pretty much straight away she takes Ella under her wing without really consulting Ella and treats her like a little sis at first. Dressing her up in her clothes and insisting they go to a party in London together with her boyfriend Katsu. But Ella soon begins to realise that Jem is a very selfish, self centred person and that she is only using Ella for her own gains. It all gets out of hand at the party, Ella sees another side to Jem so Ella leaves the party and is confronted by a man who assumes she is Jem and threatens her if she doesn't give him the money she owes, Katsu appears and takes her back into the party where she is safe.

Drunk and high Jem is now causing a scene so Katsu ends up taking them both back to Jems flat so they can sleep it all off.

The next morning Ella realises they might look like the same person but they could not be more different, realising Jem is not who she appeared to be she gets the next train back home to Wales.

The girls end up back into each others lives and swap identities for a short amount of time. Ella having come from a caravan site in Wales loves living in the Chelsea flat and higher lifestyle. She gets jet a job for Jem but also has to avoid the trouble that follows her around that Jem caused.

Jem on the other hand causes nothing but trouble whilst pretending to be Ella and it isn't long before both worlds come crashing back to reality.

Ella ends up falling for Jem's boyfriend Katsu and friends and family all get caught up in the girls web of lies.

The two girls could not be more different but are both eager to be someone they are not to change what they currently have with one of them becoming obsessed with being the other and stopping at nothing to achieve that goal.

The climax at the end of the book was really quite good, I didn't expect it to end the way that it did and I was really pleased with the ending.

Throughout the book there are also the odd few newspaper articles giving you an update of the public opinions and ups and downs of the app and its creators, showing it is causing more problems then it lets on to believe.

I really took to this one quite quickly. The storyline captured me and kept me guessing as to what was going to happen between Ella and Jem.

Gripping, fast paced and thought provoking this story is possibly an insight to an app that I hope does not actually get created but in this electronic world where everything is online and accessible at your finger tips it does make you wonder... will it happen???