Copycat: The unputdownable thriller from the USA Today bestselling author: The unputdownable thriller from the Top Ten Sunday Times bestselling author

I enjoyed this book but I have to be honest; Copycat was not nearly as good as Alex Lake's last book, Killing Kate. I feel disappointed. Killing Kate was the last book I read before reading Copycat and I loved it so much that I was eager to read another book by Alex Lake. Unfortunately Copycat had more in common with After Anna, the first book of Lake's that I read, than Killing Kate. After Anna and Copycat were enjoyable reads but were lacking something that I can't quite put my finger on. When I finish reading a really great book I feel excited and immediately look to see if there are more books by that author. I get so excited when I discover an author that I really like and can't wait to get into another book of theirs. With both After Anna and Copycat, I just didn't have that "feeling".Both books certainly kept me interested until the end but they just didn't "wow" me. Both books also had something similar that I can really only describe as a gimmick. They each had these chapters scattered throughout the book that were first person accounts from the killer in the story. The reader doesn't know who the killer is yet so it's just this unknown person talking about how their plan is falling into place, etc. There are several of these chapters in both books and none of them add anything to the story. They come off as corny, gimmicky, and unnecessary. They literally feel like those silly moments in every Scooby Doo cartoon where the guilty person tells everyone how they did it. Then they end the monologue with "And I would've gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling kids!".......<massive eye roll>All in all, this book was entertaining and held my interest but the corny gimmicks kept it from being a great book.

This was my first book by Alex Lake and while it did hold my attention, which can be hard to do, it seemed to lag at times and the descriptives were way too long. I know this is fiction but some things were not close to being believable. I am sure I will still read his books for my own curiosity to see if there is any improvement.

First let me say after being extremely dissapointed by the author's first book, "After Anna" I almost didnt give this author a second chance. Thankfully I did. First with "Killing Kate" an awesome read, by the same author, and now, with "Copy Cat" the best book so far! Let me say, as I've said in my other reviews of the books by Alex Lake (whoever that is, apparently it's a HUGE secret the author doesn't want us to know, which is stupid in itself), that if you were to read this book and the first book, by this author, "After Anna" you would bet the farm that it was 2 entirely different people writing these books. Different writing style, different plot developments, nothing about the two books are written similarly, at all, thank God! "After Anna" was the most tedious book I've ever read! *see MY review for more* This book was everything I expected and more. After reading "Killing Kate" by the same author I made sure I started following the author and as soon as this new book came out I snapped it up! This book grabbed me from the beginning and I just could not put it down. I started reading it yesterday and finished it today. It was fast paced and very intriguing. The writing style is top notch. I felt like there was great character development and plot twists galore! I shirked my other obligations for the weekend and just immersed myself in the story. I loved it and wow, do I recommend it. I'm a little sad to see the characters go, I feel like I was part of the family! It was just that good! Can't wait for the next book by Alex Lake, if it is anywhere near as good as her last 2 books, and NOTHING AT ALL LIKE "AFTER ANNA!"

March 2020 : 4 StarsWhen an old friend gets in touch, Sarah Havenant discovers that there are two Facebook profiles in her name. One is hers; the other she has never seen, but everything is accurate including pictures from the day before and pictures taken inside her home.My first book by Alex Lake, Seven Days (2019) got 5 stars. This plot moves along quickly but lots of characters. The first half of the book was moving at a neck-breaking pace and then slowed down to give us all a break. The second half of the book let us see who the main characters were and we could forget most of the other characters. Enjoyed each and every event that happened to Sarah, the main character. Had me wondering who it was that was doing these things and scratching my head. Very good book.

I was really excited to read Copycat after reading Killing Kate by the same author earlier this year. The premise really intrigued me, and I’m a huge fan of books involving stalkers, so I loved that aspect.That said, I felt like quote of the book dragged on too long. The book starts with our main character Sarah finding a Facebook account that has pictures of her life, but it’s not her account. Soon, letters start showing up in her life that have her handwriting, but that she didn’t write. Is she going crazy, or is there something more sinister happening? While all of that was really interesting at first, it began to get a little repetitive and I found myself wishing we’d get closer to a resolution. While I was able to predict the outcome, I didn’t know all of the details, so there were a few surprises. The end was left pretty open which can be hit or miss for me, and in this case I didn’t love it. I think I’d like it more if there was a sequel, but otherwise I feel like I’m lacking some of the resolution that I wanted.Overall this was a decent read, but could have improved by being 50 pages or so shorter and getting some answers more quickly.

It was a great page turner but the ending proved to be quite unsettling. Hoped for a more satisfying status and a smarter police presence.

I've read all of Alex Lake books and I loved every one of them! So if you want a good book to read, read these you won't be disappointed!By the way, in my reviews I don't give a 'mini-book' about the story I figure anyone should know what it's about, the only time I do that is if the back or inside flap doesn't give you a clear idea of what the story is about

Oh dear, this was a disaster of a book from start to finish. Sorry, but it was.There was little in the way of suspense as it was pretty clear from the outset who the "stalker" was and all the angst and soul searching was never going to change that or divert the readers attention from what was so blatantly obvious. The whole premise was verging on the ridiculous - okay I could get behind the fake profile and how disturbing it would be to have someone else pretending to be you and documenting your life "as it happens" but that, by it's very nature severely limits the suspects. Once we got past that and started getting packages delivered from online retailers that had supposedly been bought by our heroine my internal eye rolling commenced in earnest. From there on it just gets worse and worse with the final reveal making me want to throw my eReader against the wall.The plot is not helped by a series of unlikeable characters. We are supposed to empathise with Sarah but all I wanted to do was slap her - she is the very definition of weak. Her husband is well thinly characterised would be the best way of putting it; maybe the more honest way would be one dimensional. If you really thought your wife was losing the plot would you really stand so many paces back from it that you can barely see her?Poorly realised plotline that is trying to cash in on people's inherent mistrust of social media and feeding in to that paranoia.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’ve read too many psychological thrillers lately, but the evil perpetrator in this novel seemed totally obvious pretty early on. There are the usual red herring suspects thrown in along the way but the actual villain is without suspicion throughout the book until the big reveal, which for me is a bigger clue than the red herrings.I kept reading hoping I would be wrong but alas no. I did enjoy the story, even though I was frustrated that our subject, Sarah, couldn’t see what was obvious. Some of the acts carried out against Sarah seemed beyond belief or even possibility, and her husband was annoying because he didn’t belief her and assumed too quickly she was going mad.The book does highlight, however, just how much our privacy is invaded by social media and should act as a warning to everyone who catalogues their life on Facebook.

The concept of this book brought shivers down my spine. Imagine being told someone else was impersonating you on social media, sharing photos of you that you didn’t take and scarily, photos within your house… when you’re not there.This is what’s happening to Sarah and she’s terrified.Then one day the Facebook account vanishes, is she in the clear? Was it just a rather creepy prank?Sadly it’s not over, it’s far from over… who ever is doing this is reeling Sarah in slowly.With Sarah going out of her mind, her husband begins to worry and not in a good way, he thinks she’s having a mental breakdown. He doesn’t believe her. Sarah needs to prove that someone is doing this to her before it’s too late.Gripping from the very start, Lake has produced a page turner that so many will love and race through. He wonderfully builds up the suspicion from the start with an intriguing prologue and snippets of insights from the person ‘playing’ with Sarah.I have to admit, I had guessed who was behind it, but as we all know, I could have been wrong! There are plenty of twists that will keep you guessing and have your mind playing through all the possible scenarios and outcomes.Part three took me completely by surprise, I had no idea the book would go in that direction! It just goes to show, you might think you know the standard format of a psychological thriller but there is none! It’s all up to the author and their creative mind.Tense and compelling, it’ll have you hooked throughout!

I found this thriller hugely predictable. The title is apt - it feels like a lazy duplicate of many other psychological thrillers - and the writing was stilted and awkward. There's no attempt to give any of the characters depth - for example, the closeness of the relationship between our protagonist Sarah and her husband Ben is demonstrated by the fact that they occasionally have sex. I thought Alex Lake's previous novel, Killing Kate, was a bit simplistic, but this was genuinely bad. I wasn't interested in what was going to happen, and I didn't feel that Lake was either.

When an old friend gets in touch, Sarah Havenant discovers that there are two Facebook profiles in her name. One is hers. The other, she has never seen.But everything in it is accurate. Photos of her friends, her husband, her kids. Photos from the day before. Photos of her new kitchen. Photos taken inside her house.And this is just the beginning. Because whoever has set up the second profile has been waiting for Sarah to find it. And now that she has, her life will no longer be her own…Totally gripping read totally recommend