I voluntarily reviewed an Advance Reader Copy from the Publisher. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Constance
by Matthew FitzSimmons
Series: Constance #1
Series Rating:
Published by Thomas & Mercer on September 1, 2021
Genres: Dystopian Mystery
Pages: 352
Format: Paperback
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A breakthrough in human cloning becomes one woman’s waking nightmare in a mind-bending thriller by the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of the Gibson Vaughn series.
In the near future, advances in medicine and quantum computing make human cloning a reality. For the wealthy, cheating death is the ultimate luxury. To anticloning militants, it’s an abomination against nature. For young Constance “Con” D’Arcy, who was gifted her own clone by her late aunt, it’s terrifying.
After a routine monthly upload of her consciousness—stored for that inevitable transition—something goes wrong. When Con wakes up in the clinic, it’s eighteen months later. Her recent memories are missing. Her original, she’s told, is dead. If that’s true, what does that make her?
The secrets of Con’s disorienting new life are buried deep. So are those of how and why she died. To uncover the truth, Con is retracing the last days she can recall, crossing paths with a detective who’s just as curious. On the run, she needs someone she can trust. Because only one thing has become clear: Con is being marked for murder—all over again.
Constance by Matthew Fitzsimmons is a fantastic read.
I’m Merannda, and I am excited to write my first review for Baroness Book Trove, especially because Constance by Matthew Fitzsimmons is a fantastic read. I read the book with my good friend Sheri who contributed to this review. Constance is a fast-paced, thrilling ride, with twists, deeply moving passages, and an easy-to-digest yet philosophically heavy question; Is cloning humans a good idea? Fitzsimmons doesn’t hand you the answer on a silver platter, nor does he overburden you with scientific principles. Sheri and I both enjoyed the freedom given to the reader to seek out their own opinion while joining a wonderfully relatable main character on a path of self-discovery.
Con
Constance D’Arcy’s life is on a downward spiral when we meet her. She has experienced devastating loss just as her life was about to take off. For me, that wasn’t what made her relatable, although I’m sure some readers will relate. The case could be made that we, the reader, never really get to know the original Con. After all, we only get to spend a few chapters with her, and then spend the majority of the book with Con’s clone… Con, or Constance… it gets complicated. The complications are what made her relatable to me; issues like self-doubt, imposter syndrome, and the fear of confrontation all hit close to home.
Fitzsimmons molds the issues of subtle and overt racism into what I’m calling “clonism” in a very effective way. In her efforts to learn about the Original Con, Clone Con experiences deep and sometimes devastating connections with long lost friends, new loves, and other clones as well. Sheri and I found ourselves still pondering the main question of Constance long after the last page.
The Question of Cloning
There are a lot of moral quandaries brought out in Constance. Is cloning safe? Good? Equally available to all? Do clones have rights? Can they be held responsible for their original’s actions? Fitzsimmons doesn’t answer all of these questions in his novel, nor should he have. Fitzsimmons can also be commended on his novel’s not-so-distant futuristic setting. It’s easy for the reader to take the issues we see in the present and imagine their progression along a timeline where this fictional world is completely plausible. Corporate greed, political corruption, and good intentions all pave the way to at least one clone’s personal hell, and a great read we highly recommend.
Five Stars
My rating for Constance by Matthew Fitzsimmons is five stars.
Thank you for dropping by! I hope you enjoyed this review of Constance by Matthew Fitzsimmons.
Until the next time,
About Matthew FitzSimmons
Matthew FitzSimmons, an American boy from Illinois, grew up in London in the 1970s under the baleful eye of the Kings Road punks. His otherwise idyllic childhood was shattered by the traumatic experience of seeing Star Wars on December 27, 1977 in Leicester Square, listening to his father sleep through what was clearly the greatest cinematic achievement of all time, and fearing he was adopted.
For college, he attended Swarthmore College where he earned a B.A. in Psychology but lived largely in and for the theater.
After several years in New York City, and having learned he wouldn’t do absolutely anything to make it, he absconded to China. There he wrote a first novel (the less said about which the better), played center back for a foreigner’s soccer team, sparked a near riot and was forced to write a ziwo pipan (self-criticism) by the University of Nanjing—his first work of political fiction.
He now lives in Washington, D.C., where he taught English literature and theater at a private high school for over a decade. He cohabitates with a pair of old boots, collects bourbon and classic soul LPs, and wonders if he will ever write anything half as good as the first sentence of James Crumley’s The Last Good Kiss.
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