After previously reading After Anna by Alex Lake and loving it, I didn't hesitate with the chance to read Copycat. Excited to see what else this author could do and I wasn't disappointed.

Copycat is the story of Sarah, who receives a friend request on Facebook from an old school friend Rachel who is confused as there are two profiles for Sarah. One is her real profile but the other is a fake profile, however, it contains photos of her family and her home...photos she didn't take. Slowly things begin to take a sinister turn for Sarah when she finds out that it doesn't stop at the Facebook profile. This stalker has been impersonating her in other aspects of her life, emails, hand writing and even her Amazon account.

This story really drew you in, its very well written and very creepy and really makes you think about what could really happen with social media. This is not a predictable story and keeps you guessing with lots of twists and turns until the very last page. I did find the story a little slow, to begin with, and was worried I wouldn't find it as well written as After Anna, but I'm really glad I pushed on as it turned out to be a very intriguing story! I cannot wait to see what the author comes up with next.

social media user's beware! Excellent psychological thriller, i couldn't put this book down , many twists and turns keeps you guessing until the end. I would highly recommend this book. Brilliant read.

Thank you to Netgalley and to the publisher for the opportunity to read this book as an arc.
Sarah has a stalker, someone who is pretending to be her on social media, someone who knows her every movement. We find out that the stalker is hellbent on wreaking havoc upon Sarah's life and is determined to seek revenge for past wrongdoings.
I really enjoyed the book, there are plenty of twists and turns as the reader tries to figure out who Sarah's stalker is. However, as the story progresses, the genre turns from psychological thriller to horror as the stalker is unmasked and we find out they are truly psychopathic! The only niggle I have with the book is that the reasons for seeking revenge don't seem particularly strong or valid, but I guess the stalker is a psychopath and perhaps the reasons are valid enough to them!
Excellent creepy read with some really strong characters, would certainly recommend.

A really great read, had me hooked from the start, quite scary how easy it can be done in today's social media climate, characters were believable and easy to get to know, book wrapped up nicely after after a break neck speed read to the end

A fantastic read that kept me guessing until the end, I could NOT put this down!

WOW !!! A gripping book that I didn't want to end , even though I wanted to know what happened. Worth far more than five stars. I loved it

Sarah Havenant is 38 years old. She's a doctor, and she is married with three young children. Out of the blue, Sarah receives a friend request from.......well, from herself. Someone has set up a page in Sarah's name, using her details, and family pictures that Sarah has never seen before. Someone is watching her - and the profile is only the beginning. This is no ordinary troll - this person will not stop until they have destroyed everything Sarah holds dear.

This was good, I read it in one sitting. Every other chapter (or thereabouts) is from the person who's set on ruining Sarah's life - it was a little bit MUAHAHAHAHA *rubs hands together* at times (how many times do you need to say "she thinks this is bad... it will only get worse" or similar?) but it did explain little bits and pieces here and there that could have explained why Sarah was being targeted.

I did see the ending coming a mile off, and I was urging Sarah and Ben to get there quicker. The whole reasoning behind the campaign to "end" Sarah was a little ridiculous to me, and the ending was a little bit Pantomime, but the rest of the book was an easy, enjoyable enough read that by that point it didn't even matter.

I don't think I'll ever look at a sausage the same way again, mind.

Copycat is a chilling psychological thriller set in Maine and very cleverly written .Sarah Havenant has a stalker who is taking over her life and she can't guess who it is or why .The story is ultimately about revenge but it is a book that as the tension builds it is difficult to put down .I loved that everything was explained in the end .I enjoyed this book so much .10 stars !!!

I really liked this book a lot, read it whilst on holiday and I couldn't put the bloody thing down and ended up getting sunburnt!!!! Yes it's that good lol.

So basically sarah finds out she has 2 Facebook accounts yet she's only opened one of them, the other account has up to date photos of her and her kids and even shots from inside her house that she hasn't taken or posted. Then some other weird stuff goes and and her life got overtaken by trying to figure out who her "stalker" is.

I found this book fast paced and I loved the little twists and turns it through out at you at intervals. It was a creepy read and had me on the eve of my seat. She has no idea who is making her life hell and suspects everyone even her husband.

It's a truly great read I can't say much more or I'll spoil it for everyone else. I've not read any other books by this author but I can't wait for more and will be recommending this book to all my friends.

Top read a must buy ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️

When an old high school friend contacts Sarah Havenant via Facebook and asks to meet as she is moving back to their hometown of Barrow, Sarah is only too happy to oblige, but a throwaway comment makes her question her own sanity.

Is this the right account for you or is it the other one?

Sarah only has one Facebook account. Or so she thought.

Sarah decides to investigate and discovers a duplicate facebook profile in her name. One that she had no hand in setting up.

When she discovers that the owner of the account has posted recent pictures of her and her family, Sarah is rightly, freaked out. Initially dismissive of the account, Sarah's husband thinks she has just forgotten about setting it up.

But Sarah knows that she did no such thing. As she delves deeper into the mystery, determined to find the culprit, things soon escalate out of control; Sarah thinks her family is in danger and her husband thinks she is losing it.

Copycat is one of those novels that I don't want to say too much more about, I think you really need to go Sarah's journey right there alongside her.

Copycat is genuinely terrifying in that I’m not sure you’d have to be as mentally unstable as the perpetrator in this novel to set up a fake social media account and use it against somebody. Sure there are means of reporting these thing, but if you genuinely have no idea who’s behind it, then you have no proof to take to the police should things escalate...

Should you be brave enough, Copycat is a thrilling read with an ending that I never saw coming in a million years!

I really enjoyed this book it had a good story and I didn't work out what was happening until the end, which I was also unprepared for. A definite must read.

A bit disappointing and predictable.

Copycat by Alex Lake

When an old friend, Rachel, gets in touch with Sarah Havenant for the first time in years, she asks Sarah a very odd question – which of Sarah’s two Facebook accounts is the one to friend? Sarah only has the one. When Sarah takes a look she’s shocked to find that this other account has photos of her husband Ben and their children, even a couple taken over the last day or two. The posts sound like Sarah wrote them, they contain the mundane details of her life that only she should know. Sarah’s family and friends, including a police officer, are concerned but it’s difficult to know what she should do. And then, just when she’s ready to put it out of her mind, it escalates – emails, purchases made from her Amazon account, and more. It’s around this time that Ben begins to think that perhaps the impossible is true – is Sarah doing this to herself?

Copycat is the third stand alone psychological thriller by Alex Lake and I’ve enjoyed all of them. They each feature an intriguing female protagonist who has the ground swept away from under her feet. We’re never quite sure what is happening and these women certainly don’t. And it puts everyone around them into the same dark place as the main character sinks further into herself, questioning everything around them. Sarah is a fine example of this. Her own identity is being eroded for reasons she can’t fathom until she even doubts her own sanity.

Social media is becoming increasingly appealing to authors of psychological thrillers and it’s used well here, expanding on the theme of identity fraud. I’ve had experience of this and so I found the way that this story develops particularly frightening. It certainly keeps the reader on the edge of their seat.

There are elements of the story that I found quite hard to accept. I don’t want to give anything away but I did have trouble with the reasons for why all of this is happening. So while the first half is thoroughly absorbing and tense, scary even, this is dissipated in the second half (at least for me) as it is all explained. Nevertheless, even though this isn’t my favourite of the three, I enjoy Alex Lake’s writing very much. I like the ways in which his stories undermine the everyday lives of his main protagonists and affect those around them. Life is a frightening place in the world of Copycat. As Sarah becomes more and more afraid, she finds threats everywhere, but which are real and which are red herrings are not easy to separate. It leaves Sarah with nowhere to go. And it is fascinating and thrilling to watch.

Other reviews and features
After Anna
Killing Kate
An interview

With short chapters and a sinister cyber stalker, Copycat really ramps up the tension. It's very readable and the modern plot meant that I found myself constantly coming back to devour more of this thought-provoking and enthralling book.
​The unique method that the stalker uses to torment Sarah, made me reflect on the massive power that the internet holds. The amount of details that are out there and how dangerous they can be in the wrong hands truly is a scary thought.
The book is 416 pages but it doesn't drag at all and I felt as though I read this incredibly quickly, as the writing is very fast paced.
I guessed who the stalker was, but it didn't make it any less enjoyable and tense finding out why they'd been trying to destroy Sarah.
I thought that the last third of the book, and the ending itself, were a little hard to believe and felt quite unrealistic. Nevertheless, I was completely gripped and engaged the whole time and found myself frantically flipping the pages, desperate to find out how everything would end.
Overall, I'd give this book 4 out of 5. It's sinister and modern, a little unrealistic at times, but completely gripping and I'd certainly read more by the author.

I loved this book. It was thrilling and had me guessing for the most part of the story. I seriously couldn’t stop reading and put the book down. I felt like riding on a roller coaster with all the ups and downs and twist and turns the story was making. Never sure what would happen next. I like that in a book. And I liked that the one person Sarah didn’t like - her mother-in-law, was saving the day. What a bittersweet ending. The ending though.... Since I don’t like open endings, I had a hard time with this one and it’s the only thing I would change. Apart from that it’s a book I really recommend to everybody looking for a well written psychological thriller. I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thanks to NetGalley and HarperCollins UK!

A modern day gripping thriller. Sarah Havenant S a GP in a small American town, 2 kids, busy life, loving husband. When she discovers there is a 'fake' Facebook page, with photos of her life and family, her run of the mill life takes a worrying turn. I found this a page turner and, although I did guess the identity of the stalker, just before it was revealed in the story, I still found this a great read.

Intensely disturbing, and irresistible. Made me question many things, and in particular the way people behave on social media. This is a tale of trolling at a pathological level. Do NOT read if you are feeling vulnerable, paranoid or unsupported in any way...

A great thriller with a stalker with a difference. Sarah is being stalked by herself - by social media, by letters, by post. She receives great sympathy at first from her husband, the police officer, her friends but then they slowly turn as no-one except Sarah herself could have access to all this information and too much leads to it being her. She is on her own now or is she delusional? A really creepy, dark story. Fast paced with a gripping ending.

This was another book that scared me a little whilst reading it. Mostly cos of the way that it illustrates how social media and the like can be abused and used to cause havoc to an innocent party. It definitely made me run to my privacy settings and check them all over!
Sarah Havenant receives a Facebook request from an old school friend Rachel. Along with this request comes a question asking her which profile she actually uses as it appears that she has two. This is accompanied by a link to the other one. Sarah follows this link and is horrified by what she sees. Someone has been following her and taking pictures of her life, as well as posting as her. But this is just the start of her downward spiral as soon she finds that someone has been impersonating her in other areas of her life especially online and via email. As the frequency and level of these intrusions escalates even Sarah's husband, Ben, starts to doubt her sanity. With a bit of a history, could Sarah be doing it all herself and not be aware, or is someone really out to get her? And if the latter, who and why?
As already mentioned, this story scared me a little. Especially the social media and email side of things. How many times could I have been duped by only scanning email addresses and not really paying attention to who was actually contacting me. We do live in a bit of a scary time if the ease of what happens in this book could actually happen in real life, and to be honest, it all comes across as very credible.
It's a fast paced book that, once I had started, I really didn't want to put down. I really needed to know what was happening as I got to the stage where I hadn't a clue where we were going. Right up to certain point when all became clear and then I just needed to know why and, more importantly, what was going to happen next.
I do admit to struggling to connect to Sarah initially. I am not quite sure why but there was just something a bit off about her. Maybe that's the nature of this type of book and my suspicious nature coming forward. I also didn't really like Ben too much but then I do understand some of his motivations and I was able to connect to both him and Sarah eventually so it didn't really matter what I actually though of either of them at the end of the day, and the book for that matter!
Included within the book we have the usual cast of suspects. each being ruled in and out along the way. It's always hard with this type of book to know who to keep in play and for how long so that the reader doesn't feel cheated at the end of the day and here, I think the author did a spot on job. Sarah's confusion really did come across superbly as she was trying to work things out herself, flitting between her own ideas sometimes several times, often on the same page as we saw her thought process unravel.
The ending was a bit weird for me. Maybe a little too over the top in part but it is what it is and, although I wasn't completely sold on it, I am sure others will be. I'm just not as convinced as maybe I should be.
All in all, a good solid read that kept my attention nicely. I definitely enjoyed it more than After Anna so I guess I'd better give Killing Kate a whirl sometime.

My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Identity theft and the misuse of Facebook were certainly highlighted in this book. It is very difficult not to say 'whodunnit' as I would not want to spoil the whole read. There were times when the young American doctor just did not know what to do when confronted by fake emails, and then Amazon parcels for her turned up! The author kept the tension up really well. However, I found the ending a bit weak which accounted for less than 5 stars.