The pair are approached by a company willing to grow and build a duplicate (they are careful to avoid the word clone) of Scarlett, with a mind augmented by AI technology in order to give the parents their perfect child, even smoothing out some of the rough edges that have been growing in Scarlett over the past year.
While Tamsyn and Ed anguish over the choice initially, they eventually agree to the replication. Scarlett and her parents are whisked away to Geneva and, while Scarlett now has the best medical care possible, her parents get introduced to their new daughter, Sophie.
Sophie doesn't know she is anything special. She believes she is Scarlett (though she thinks of herself as Sophie). She knows there was an accident and that she doesn't remember much from the past year or so of her life. Although, she does find it odd that a medical company has packed up her and her family from the poorest parts of the UK and brought them to this magnificent city with an unlimited bank account. She also can't help but wonder why her parents still go to the hospital that helped wake her up even though she is no longer a patient, and when asked about their visits, they are obviously hiding something.
It isn't long before two things happen; Sophie realizes she is a replacement for Scarlett, and Scarlett starts to wake up from her coma. As each daughter realizes the new truth, Tamsyn and Ed have to convince them to think of the other version as a twin and that's how they've come to see the daughters themselves, but it should come as no surprise that neither daughter will react all that well to their new reality.
Without getting into too many details and risk spoiling some interesting events, suffice it to say that Scarlett feels threatened by her overly engineered duplicate who is quick to pick up new languages and skills, all while Scarlett herself is still recovering from months of muscle atrophy. Meanwhile, Scarlett's fears aren't all in her head as Sophie seems to see her original as an intruding aspect to what was, for all intents and purposes, the perfect family unit.
It isn't until a new outside influence comes into contact with Sophie, Scarlett, Tamsyn and Ed that they realize that there are even bigger secrets surrounding Sophie and the technology that created her.
Evie Green has crafted a unique take on human cloning and the horrors that could come from such technology. The New One is a Black Mirror-esque story that takes the idea of "if it's too good to be true, then it probably is" to a whole new level. If the setup of this story has even piqued your interest a little, then you won't be disappointed in this book.
