The Klone and I

By Danielle Steel

Stephanie's marriage ended suddenly when her husband of thirteen years declared one morning that he didn't love her, that he had never loved her. Of course, she asked him if there was someone else, which he denied. But of course there was.
All that didn't matter when Stephanie met Peter. Peter seemed like the ideal guy and it wasn't too long before it got serious. Then one day, Peter had to go on a business trip for a couple of weeks and he told Stephanie that he had a surprise for her to make up for his absence. The surprise turned out to be Paul.
Paul looked exactly like Peter and at first Stephanie assumed he was Peter pretending to be the wild, outrageous and just a bit crazy Paul. He wasn't. In fact, Paul wasn't even human, he was a bionic version of Peter, but with a few personality kinks that Peter didn't have. However, he was a lot of fun to be with and good with the kids and generous to a fault and Stephanie found herself falling hard for him. Then Peter returned from his trip and Stephanie loved being with him too. Now she has two lovers, one of which isn't really human, and can't make up her mind which one she wants.

This was an OK story. I don't know anything about bionics and in the story Paul has his head removed when he returns to the lab and his wiring replaced and yet, when reassembled, he is able to eat and drink and have sex and even catch cold. I mean, is he alive or is he a machine? It is never very clear in the story. I found that rather off-putting. Plus I just never believed any of it, not the bionic man, not Stephanie's dilemma, not Paul's ridiculous sexual acrobatics. It never really engaged me, I guess. It's an interesting idea but just not very well developed.