The Echo Wife
2021 science fiction thriller novel by Sarah Gailey
The Echo Wife is a 2021 science fiction thriller novel by Sarah Gailey, published by Tor Books. It follows Doctor Evelyn Caldwell, an accomplished scientist researching cloning, who has discovered that her husband, Nathan, has used her research to create Martine, a clone of Evelyn who is his ideal wife. When Martine kills Nathan in self-defense, Evelyn must assist in covering up the murder.
Plot
Evelyn Caldwell receives a call from Martine, an identical clone of her created by her husband, Nathan. Nathan cheated on Evelyn with Martine and divorced her soon after. Martine reveals to Evelyn that she is pregnant; Evelyn blames Martine for taking the life she deserved from her. Later, Martine asks Evelyn to come over and ushers her into their house, where she reveals Nathan's dead body, having stabbed him to death with a kitchen knife. Evelyn reluctantly helps Martine bury his corpse and use his DNA to create an identical clone of him to help Martine to take care of their child, although they wipe his memories and make it seem that Martine is Evelyn; they also install a kill switch just in case.
Some time later, Martine calls Evelyn over again and reveals that while digging in the back yard, she discovered the bodies of 12 copies of her; Evelyn realizes that Martine was Nathan's 13th clone and the first success, having murdered the other copies and buried them. Martine aims to use Nathan's clone's kill switch but Evelyn convinces her to use the 12th corpse to fake her death, leaving their child with Nathan before leaving.
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Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q116257350. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2021.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Echo Wife” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.