Excerpt from The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

This banquet was supposed to be my night. It was not a night for regret; it was a night for satisfaction. After everything that had happened, didn't I deserve that much?

I crossed my legs, drank my wine, arranged my face into a gracious smile, and pointed my chin at the podium. There was no point in dwelling on the things that the Evelyn of a decade ago had wanted. I told myself that I had been a different person then, practically a child, with a different life. Different goals.

Things change.

Things die.

And now, here was a banquet hall filled with intellectual luminaries. Wine and waiters and flowers and programs. Rented gowns and uncomfortable shoes, speeches and seating charts, all to celebrate me. All for me.

I did not allow my hands to tremble. I did not grit my teeth. I did not climb up onto my chair and tear the silk from my ribs and scream at the top of my lungs about everything that was wrong and broken and missing.

There was nothing to feel upset about. Not a single thing.

Excerpted from The Echo Wife by Sarah Gailey. Copyright © 2021 by Sarah Gailey. Excerpted by permission of Tor Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.