Excerpt from The Accidentals by Guadalupe Nettel, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

One day, as I was walking down Calle Mariposa, I saw once again the uniformed salespeople unloading new cardboard boxes from a delivery van and recalled that September afternoon when my wife and I had discovered that strange door. Where had Lili gone, the real Lili, the one with whom I had experienced all those years of happiness, misfortune, and boredom, the mother of the daughter I had had for thirty-one years and who I could no longer talk about with anyone? At that moment, despite all my reservations, I couldn't help but go in and beg the saleswoman to put us back to the way we had been at the start of it all, before she had changed the date of Clara's birthday.

'Nothing that's changed once can go back to being exactly how it was, Mr Moncada. You don't realize that each previous version is different to the way you remember it. I can try to make you old again, if that's really what you want, but who can guarantee that then you will like your life? I think it highly unlikely, to be quite honest.'

I explained to the saleswoman that, although my body was strong, I felt too mentally exhausted to be twenty years old. That at this point in my life I found it a real struggle to sleep on such a bad mattress, to eat pizza every three days, to spend my weekends in noisy nightclubs and, worst of all, to lack the enthusiasm necessary to live for another four decades again.

'You have made a lot of changes in a very short period of time, sir. Let a few months go by. You'll get your energy back little by little, as you forget your history and your previous identity.' I felt a shiver and asked:

'And if that doesn't happen?'

'Then you can work for us. Being the witness to other people's lives is very entertaining, and far less tiring, you'll see. You can even move in here, if you'd rather.'

This offer horrified me, and so I opted to cut the conversation short right away and closed the little door behind me, resolving never to set foot in the place again. I walked through a neighbourhood I barely recognized, feeling on my shoulders the weight of longing. Through the window of our house, I saw Lili engrossed in chopping vegetables. I stood looking at her for a few minutes, unable to decide whether the sensation of strangeness or familiarity that came over me was greater. The girl I saw there was not my wife but rather her prototype, but she was also—no matter how much or how little I liked it—the only thing that remained of her. When she saw me through the window, my wife smiled in surprise, put down her knife on the table, and went to open the door. Once inside, I clung to her waist and there, in the door to the kitchen, assured her that now I felt ready to start a family. That I would work hard so we never wanted for anything, and that we would always have vanilla extract in the cupboard.

Excerpted from The Accidentals by Guadalupe Nettel. Copyright © 2025 by Guadalupe Nettel. Excerpted by permission of Bloomsbury Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.