IMPOSTOR

The first in a trilogy, IMPOSTOR a fresh, fast-paced supernatural thriller for teens. Equal parts romance, fantasy, and murder mystery—one early reader dubbed it “Silence of the Lambs meets X-Men”—Winnacker has created a highly inventive and gripping page-turner of a story.

Tessa spent most her life hiding her “gift.” After all, what would normal people say if they knew she could steal their appearance, perfectly imitate their looks from head to toe—every scar, every blemish—with just one touch? But all of that changed the day the FEA came to her house to take her away. The FEA—Forces with Extraordinary Abilities, an official branch of the FBI—is made of other “Variants” like Tessa, people with powerful talents that are used in solving the most serious of crimes. For the first time in her life, Tessa belonged. She was no longer a burden or a freak like her mother raised her to believe—she was valuable, a prized possession.
Two years after coming to the FEA headquarters, 16-year-old Tessa is still an agent-in-training with other Variants her age, their days filled with criminology and forensics classes and demanding physical tests. But when a series of gruesome murders shakes the small town of Livingston, Oregon, Tessa gets assigned her first real mission: She will shift into the body of the serial killer’s latest victim, 16-year-old Madison Chambers, to bait and track down the murderer. She won’t be completely alone in Livingston, though—Alec, her fellow FEA agent and true love of her life (who for inexplicable reasons refuses to love her back) is playing the new student in town, keeping watch over her as she’s surrounded by a sea of potential suspects.
Madison’s family and friends are oblivious to Madison’s death and the imposter now living among them—they’ve been convinced by FEA-controlled doctors that Madison miraculously woke from a coma. At first Tessa hates deceiving Madison’s parents and her older brother, Devon, but soon she begins to like her role... perhaps too much. She finally has the loving family she’s always longed for, a family she’d give anything to have—and keep. As Tessa becomes absorbed in Madison’s world, the lines of her inner and outer identity blur. The longer she pretends to be Madison, the more conflicted she feels about her loyalties to FEA and her feelings for Alec, and the more “Tessa” begins to fade into the past. Will Tessa be able to stop the killer without losing herself along the way?

Susanne Winnacker has crafted a riveting paranormal mystery, but she’s also given readers a very strong, very genuine voice in Tessa, a character to love and root for. Tessa may be a shapeshifter tracking a serial killer, yet she’s still very much a normal teen girl who readers can instantly connect with. Her struggle with who she is—and the fact that, unlike most teens, she can actually change that identity on a very fundamental level—is a compelling new take on the classic “coming of age.”