by Alma Katsu
First published 2026
Dorothy Wagner stares at her computer screen, crafting the perfect digital woman. After years of failed attempts at social media fame, she now works at a deepfake technology company where she secretly builds Isabella, an AI influencer with impossible beauty and magnetic appeal. Isabella explodes across social platforms, gathering millions of followers and lucrative brand partnerships. Dorothy finally tastes the attention she craved, living vicariously through her creation. But success brings unexpected consequences. Partnership requests flood in faster than Dorothy can handle. Obsessed fans fill her messages, desperate to meet Isabella in person. The pressure of maintaining her secret identity while managing Isabella's empire begins fracturing Dorothy's sense of self. She loses track of where Dorothy ends and Isabella begins. When someone threatens to expose her deception, a violent encounter forces Dorothy to flee. Now she must decide what she will sacrifice to protect the digital life that has consumed her real one.
Genres: contemporary, adult-fiction, technology, psychological-thriller, 21st-century, social-media
Vibes: dark, introspective, psychological, suspenseful, tension-filled, unsettling
Tropes: creation-turns-on-creator, identity-blurred, obsession, unreliable-narrator
Period: 21st century
336 pages · Hardcover · G.P. Putnam's Sons
Content warnings: mental-illness, violence