You will feel what it is to be the version that was not chosen — and the strange, hard-won pride of having built something real out of exactly that.
The Otherwise Novels · Cover revealed
Remain
She is the version that wasn't chosen. She made a life out of what was thrown away. Now the chooser wants it back.
Anouk built a life from what was thrown away. Now the woman who threw it away is at the door.
The story
What waits inside
In Verren, every major choice leaves behind a living remainder: the person who might have been, made whole at the instant someone else walks on.
Fifteen years ago, Anouk was left at a kitchen table with an abandoned lease, an unfinished clockmaker's apprenticeship, and a name she was permitted to keep. She made them a life: warm rooms, skilled hands, work that became her own, and love her original never knew.
Then a rain-soaked woman with Anouk's face arrives to reclaim the name, the apartment, and everything built inside them. Verren has etiquette for the discarded, but no registry, no court, and no rule for a life claimed by two women at once.
With one kettle, two coats, and no authority willing to choose between them, Anouk must decide whether dignity can be divided without making either woman less real.
A tender, wry speculative novel about discarded selves and the dignity of a life no one chose.
In the city of Verren, every major choice calves a remainder — a living copy of the chooser at the decision moment, bound to the city where the choice was made, running a half-beat out of phase with the world — and the remainders keep living, remembering the road not taken.
Being chosen was always a story the choosers told. A life is made real not by having been picked but by being tended — and the versions we discard go on paying our debts and deserve better than our nostalgia.
Interior previews
First pages arriving soon
When manuscript pages are ready, they will appear here as a lightweight gallery — designed for fast loading, sharp type, and quiet immersion.