Synopsis: It has been twenty years since Eager lived with the Bell family and the world has moved on. Robots have been replaced by sophisticated, humaniform animats, but robots with free will - robots like Eager and his sister - have been declared illegal. On one of his occasional visits to the Bells, Eager discovers that his nephew, Jonquil, has tagged along. At first he is worried that Jonquil will get into trouble in the big, bad world, but soon they are facing a more serious difficulty, as Eager's friends are once more caught up in the machinations of global industry.

Review:  Eager's Nephew is the sequel to Helen Fox's Eager. Although he is the title character, Jonquil is actually something of a plot device, both initiating and resolving difficulties, but his uncle once more fills the role of observer to the human events of the story. The older, wiser Eager of this story reflects ruefully on his former gaucheness and worried that his nephew will make the same sorts of mistakes.

Where the first book dealt with how intelligent robots might function in the world, this story is more about how people interact with the wider world through technology, and how technology can be used to perpetrate deception. The crises in Eager's Nephew are more domestic and less apocalyptic than those in Eager, but no less real, and each one revolves around a question of identity.

Like its predecessor, Eager's Nephew gives its reader more questions than answers. It is thus suited mostly to more sophisticated readers in KS3+ and could prove frustrating to anyone used to having the answers provided in a final, 'Friar Lawrence' speech.