Sarah Zachrich Jeng grew up in Michigan and always had a flair for the morbid and mysterious (for her dad’s thirty-fifth birthday, she wrote a short story entitled “The Man Who Died at 35”). After a brief career as an aspiring rock star, she now develops websites and writes cross-genre novels that combine suspense with the speculative.
How far would you go to get even with the woman who ruined your life?
In this electrifying thriller, a young woman gets everything she’s ever wanted—and everything she doesn’t—when she swaps bodies with her sworn enemy.
Though polar opposites, Mary and Elizabeth are as close as can be—until the night Elizabeth makes an irrevocable mistake and leaves Mary to take the blame. Years later, Elizabeth seems to have forgotten Mary exists.
Mary hasn’t forgotten her.
She follows Elizabeth’s every move online, obsessed with paying her back for the betrayal that cost Mary her dreams. Now Mary has found a way to switch bodies with Elizabeth, and she’s got a plan to steal her charmed life. Her career. Her looks. Her husband.
They do say living well is the best revenge.
Or is it? The more Mary uncovers about Elizabeth’s life, the more she realizes she may have made a deadly mistake. And she’ll need the help of her worst enemy to stay alive.
“Twisty doesn’t begin to describe Sarah Zachrich Jeng’s When I’m Her—a complex, mind-bending, mind-blowing psychological suspense unlike anything I’ve ever read. Jeng’s first novel was a stunner, and now she’s completely outdone herself. Just read it!”
—Karen Dionne, bestselling author of The Marsh King’s Daughter
“Speculative suspense fans, get ready. This twisty page turner has everything I love in the genre: a fascinating premise, huge moral questions any book club would love to sink their teeth into, and two uncompromising, enigmatic women at the heart of the story. Once you start reading, When I’m Her will trade places with your life.”
—Mindy Mejia, bestselling author of Strike Me Down
“The adage be careful what you wish for is taken to the next level in this unputdownable story about friendship, envy, and revenge. The premise is wild and innovative, with a Blake Crouch twist, and will keep you ripping through the pages. Another winner from Sarah Zachrich Jeng.”
—Alex Finlay, author of The Night Shift
“The queen of the steminist thriller is back with another intricate, twisted ride. When I’m Her is part wish fulfillment, part nightmare and all engrossing!”
—Eliza Jane Brazier, author of Girls and Their Horses
Two lives. The one you wanted. The one that wanted you.
Her birthday should be like any other night.
One minute Kelly’s a free-spirited artist in Chicago going to her best friend’s art show opening. The next, she opens a door and mysteriously emerges in her Michigan hometown. Suddenly her life is unrecognizable: She’s got twelve years of the wrong memories in her head and she’s married to Eric, a man she barely knew in high school.
Racing to get back to her old life, Kelly’s search leads only to more questions. In this life, she loves Eric and wants to trust him, but everything she discovers about him—including a connection to a mysterious tech startup—tells her she shouldn’t. And strange things keep happening. The tattoos she had when she was an artist briefly reappear on her skin, she remembers fights with Eric that he says never happened, and her relationships with loved ones both new and familiar seem to change without warning.
But the closer Kelly gets to putting the pieces together, the more her reality seems to shift. And if she can’t figure out what happened on her birthday, the next change could cost her everything...
“Mind bending and emotional, The Other Me takes you on a journey of second chances and do-overs. Zachrich Jeng dishes up a taut psychological thriller with a twisted question at its core: Would you be willing to lose a life you love in order to gain something you thought was lost forever?”
—Julie Clark, New York Times bestselling author of The Last Flight
“The definition of unputdownable...a fresh story, quick pacing, intriguing characters. I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough! This is one of the most innovative thrillers I’ve read in a long, long time.”
—Samantha Downing, USA Today bestselling author of My Lovely Wife
“Breathtaking, inventive, and irresistible...Who hasn’t wondered what alternate versions of their lives might look like?…As relatable as it is suspenseful, cleverly exploring adulthood, identity, and shifting realities. A knockout debut.”
—Margarita Montimore, USA Today bestselling author of Oona Out of Order
“Perhaps this book’s greatest pleasure—and there are many to choose from—is the way Jeng leads the reader down one road, then makes a sharp right turn and heads off in a new direction. The Other Me is not what it seems to be, and Kelly’s story is not going to end where you think it will. This is Jeng’s first novel, and it immediately establishes her as a writer to watch very closely.”
—Booklist
“Both a suspenseful psychological thriller and an astute reinvention of the time travel narrative.”
—CrimeReads
“Jeng’s debut is a page-turner with well-developed characters… A good pick for fans of modern women’s fiction about controlling one’s destiny.”
—Library Journal
“Convincing alternate-universe mechanics and a subtle lesson in the perils of manipulating other people to get what we want raise the bar in this fun, well-paced story. An enjoyable adventure with a likable heroine in search of the life she really wants.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Satisfyingly intricate and genuinely innovative.”
—Eliza Jane Brazier, author of If I Disappear
“An ingenious twist on the domestic thriller, combining mind-bending speculative mystery with timely insights about creative expression, male entitlement, and the complexities of modern marriage. This assured, compelling debut will leave you nostalgic for all the lives you’ve never lived—and desperate to read whatever Sarah Zachrich Jeng’s brilliant imagination whips up next!”
—Layne Fargo, author of They Never Learn
Literary agent and foreign rights: Joanna MacKenzie, Nelson Literary Agency
Film rights: Mary Pender, UTA
Publicity: Tina Joell and Lauren Burnstein
Marketing: Hannah Engler