Sarah Zachrich Jeng’s New Novel: On What Happens When An Alternate Reality Takes Over Your Life
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Our new Igloo Book Buzz selection is Sarah Zachrich Jeng’s THE OTHER ME, published this week by Berkley. A mind-bending, emotional rollercoaster ride, this psychological thriller spirals along an alternate reality path, as the central character’s subliminally wished-for life crashes into her real world.
Sarah Zachrich Jeng – Photo Credit: Megan Brown
Author Sarah Zachrich Jeng shares, “I’d been thinking about wish fulfillment and the ‘guy meets girl, guy loses girl, guy moves mountains to get girl’ narrative. It’s so often told from the man’s point of view and framed as a wholly positive thing, even if the woman is oblivious or resistant to his interest in her. I decided to turn that story around and look at it from the woman’s perspective, using a sci-fi trope that completely took away her choice in the matter. For a while I’d also been dealing with the transition into having a young child and a job I had to wake up early for, feeling a certain lack of creativity and spontaneity in my life, and that’s where Kelly being an artist came from.”
Sarah continues, “It’s been so exciting to see the responses from early readers. People always seem to be intrigued by an alternate reality story, and everyone I’ve talked to has taken something different from the book. I’m thrilled to see THE OTHER ME out in the world, and I hope it gets readers thinking about their own roads not taken.”
Jen Monroe
Berkley Senior Editor Jen Monroe says, “Not only has Sarah written a book that is so fun, fast, and sharp—think a feminist DARK MATTER meets the dizzying fun of ‘Russian Doll’ meets the gaslighting of BEFORE I GO TO SLEEP— but she’s completely wonderful to work with and a real asset. I read the first draft of this book during the beginning of the pandemic when it was hard to enjoy much of anything and she pulled me in from the very first pages with her story about women’s choices—both the ones we make and the ones made for us.”