I found Tessa and her ability to be fascinating. I hope the next Variant books explore more extraordinary abilities, and we see something that still feels grounded in reality like this book, but with an added dose of fantasy/science fiction. Even though this particular case gets solved, there’s still more to come and the stakes are higher. Imposter also builds up to what could be an interesting long term story line. I feel like the author is still building it up and appropriately was more focused on the plot at hand. There is some romance, which I thought was okay.

I found myself changing up my theories constantly while reading it. There are some twists that I totally didn’t see coming. Trying to solve who the serial killer is wasn’t as predictable as it seemed. From that point, Imposter is really entertaining. However, once Tessa embarks on her mission, the pacing fires up, and the mystery and action packed aspects of the novel kick in. It does feel slow in the beginning as we get to know Tessa’s world.

Imposter begins as we’re introduced to Tessa, the FEA, and her friends and fellow agents. With an ability like that, Tessa is a very important asset to the FEA, but it also makes her a target. In Tessa’s case, she can absorb the DNA of anyone she touches and mimic their appearance. Some can read minds or have super strength.

All FEA agents are Variants, meaning they each have a special and non-human ability. Oh yeah, Tessa isn’t just some regular FBI agent she’s part of a top secret branch called Forces with Extraordinary Abilities (FEA, for short). Her mission is to transform into a dying girl’s body, pretend to be her and be used as bait for a dangerous and at-large serial killer. Imposter follows a FBI agent-in-training, Tessa, who gets assigned her first real mission. Susanne Winnacker’s Imposter seems to be the one I’ve been looking for. I’ve been looking for an X-Men like series that is in a similar vein of Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy or books like it.

Impostor by Susanne Winnacker