The Pretenders by Rebecca Hancock

Review by Katy Grant   

A journey that began in The Similars, by Rebecca Hancock, comes to a heartbreaking, hopeful and warm conclusion in The Pretenders. One not to miss. It will keep you on the edge of your seat with its twists, turns, and outright surprises. Where emotions run high on all sides, revenge is a high stakes game, secrets abound, and hatred still has roots at Darkwood.  Emma is still struggling with the fact that she is a Similar and what it might mean for her future, while she tries to make peace with her love for Levi and how to explain it to Oliver. Oliver is back, but Gravelle still holds Levi on Castor Island, where Emma dare not try to communicate with him for fear that Gravelle will make Levi pay for her disobedience.

After Madison, the leader for the hate group, DAAM, graduated last year from Darkwood, there was hope that the animosity against the Similars would subside, but as always, there was someone to take her place. This year it is a junior named Harlowe who leads the rally against those she considers less than human. In a plot to show Theo, Maud and Pippa that they don’t belong at Darkwood, Harlow and her minions attempt an insidious act of hazing, drugging them and tying them to chairs while dragging Oliver in as well to bring pain to Emma. In a race against time to save her friends from Harlowe and her minions, Emma realizes that along with the same strengths the others have, she has an ability they do not. She can hear people’s thoughts. 

Inadvertently Emma hears Oliver thoughts of how to tell her of his love and now she must find a way to keep him from voicing these thoughts out loud to her for fear that it would destroy both their friendship and Oliver himself. Over the holidays she tries to confront her father about why he never told her who she really was; a child born in a laboratory, to replace the daughter he lost, one he could never really love.  When she returns to Darkwood after the holidays she finds that Gravelle has released Levi, allowing him to return to the school.

And now, the plot thickens, Gravelle’s revenge on the DNA families doesn’t stop with installing the Similars at Darkwood, in hopes to overshadow their children and embarrass the adults. He has now created Duplicates, exact replicas of the adults and plans to replace the originals, Jane, Oliver’s mother, Collin, Emma’s father, Bianca, Madison’s mother and more. These Duplicate clones are born, and fully grown within two years. When Gravelle may instill them with all the memories, experiences, and knowledge of the originals. But, for what reason?  Whatever, the plan Emma and the others must find a way to stop him. They turn to Pru’s father Jaeger for help, but will it be enough?

The Similars find a few allies that will join them in the fight to end Gravelle’s plot for revenge, but he isn’t alone, someone else has joined him, someone who wants to control the world.  This conclusion is full of action, intrigue, secrets and romance. There is hatred, evil, heartbreak and death with no easy solutions.  There is also friendship, acceptance of themselves and others, determination, love, and respect for life.

I thoroughly enjoyed both books, sitting on the edge of my chair lost in their world. I quickly  grew to care about the characters, was sucked into the situations in which they found themselves and intrigued at the way in which they faced and dealt with every new problem. This tale follows Maude, Pippa, Theo, Jago, Ansel, Levi, Emma, Pru and Oliver through their final year of high school at Darkwood. They face the distrust and in some cases hatred of other students and a few teachers. But they also must stop a mad man’s plot to get revenge no matter who he hurts. Towards the end of the story there is a twist that really threw me and made this a book one that will always be on my top shelf to share with others.