Stranger with My Face

Stranger with My Face is a young adult horror novel by Lois Duncan, first published in 1981. The novel is about the Native American Laurie Stratton, who is seen by others in places which she knows she could not be. She discovers that she has an identical twin sister named Lia who has been visiting her town using astral projection, which involves sending her soul outside her body. Laurie learns astral projection and uses it to look for her sister. During this time, Lia's spirit takes control of Laurie's body. The story describes Laurie's struggle to take back control of her body. The novel explores themes of appearance versus true self and the idea of a double, someone similar but not quite the same as someone else. Duncan got the idea for the book after hearing about the concept of astral projection, which she thought would make a great plot for a novel. In 2011, the novel was updated with text to modernize the content.