The Knockoff

It's not surprising that Lucy Sykes's first novel with coauthor Jo Piazza nails the fashion industry with a witty story. She's the former fashion director of MARIE CLAIRE and the twin sister of Plum Sykes, author and contributing editor of VOGUE. Narrator Katherine Kellgren does a magnificent job of transitioning between charming the British magazine editor Imogen and the ruthlessly commanding Eve, Imogen's former assistant, who has taken over in Imogen's absence. Kellgren instills the dialogue with the passion of the two powerful women while easily slipping into the voices of Imogen's children and the Valley girl voice of her assistant, Ashley. With plenty of laughs and twists along the way, Kellgren captivates listeners with the story of turning a magazine into an app. A.L.C. © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine

April 20, 2015
Fashion maven Sykes and journalist Piazza combine forces to create a winning romp of a tale that skewers a millennial, techie know-it-all who tries to undermine an "old guard" print editor when a top fashion magazine is transformed into an interactive app. Imogen Tate, editor-in-chief for Glossy magazine, returns to work after six months in treatment for breast cancer. She finds her former assistant, Eve Morton, back from a stint at Harvard business school, brimming with superiority and ideas to turn her print magazine into a 24/7 trendy online marketplace app. In this modernized All About Eve plotline, the maniacally driven Eve goes up against her too-kind boss in ways both large (stealing Imogen's ideas) and small (insulting her lack of tech knowledge), leaving Imogen feeling out of step. Throughout, readers are constantly reminded of the ubiquity of technology and its potential pitfalls. This breezy, behind-the-scenes tale offers a fresh, modern take on a classic tale of rivalry.