Excerpt from How to Stop Time by Matt Haig, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

'Do you realise what the modern world is like, Tom? It's not like the old days. You can't just move address and add your name to the parish register. Do you know how much I have had to pay to keep you and the other members safe?'

'Well then, I could save you some money.'

'I was always very clear: this is a one-way street—'

'A one-way street I never asked to be sent down.'

He sucked on his straw, winced at the taste of his smoothie.
'Which is life itself, isn't it? Listen, kid—'

'I'm hardly that.'

'You made a choice. It was your choice to see Dr Hutchinson—'

'And I would never have made that choice if I'd have known what would happen to him.' He made circles with the straw, then placed the glass on the small table beside him in order to take a glucosamine supplement for his arthritis.

'Then I would have to have you killed.' He laughed that croak of his, to imply it was a joke. But it wasn't. Of course it wasn't. 'I'll make a deal, a compromise. I will give you the exact life you want – any life at all – but every eight years, as usual, you'll get a call and, before you choose your next identity, I'll ask you to do something.'

I had heard all this before, of course. Although 'any life you want' never really meant that. He would give me a handful of suggestions and I'd pick one of them. And my response, too, was more than familiar to his ears.

'Is there any news of her?' It was a question I had asked a hundred times before, but it had never sounded as pathetic, as hopeless, as it did now.

He looked at his drink. 'No.'

I noticed he said it a little quicker than he normally would.


'No. No, I haven't. But, listen, we are finding new people at an incredible rate. Over seventy last year. Can you remember when we started? A good year was five. If you still want to find her you'd be mad to want out now.'

I heard a small splashing sound from the swimming pool. I stood up, went to the edge of the pool, and saw a small mouse, hopelessly swimming along past a water filter. I knelt down and scooped the creature out. It scuttled away towards the perfectly manicured grass.

He had me, and he knew it. There was no way out alive. And even if there was, it was easier to stay. There was a comfort to it – like insurance.

'Any life I want?'

'Any life you want.'

I am pretty sure, Hendrich being Hendrich, he was assuming that I was going to demand something extravagant and expensive. That I would want to live in a yacht off the Amalfi Coast, or in a penthouse in Dubai. But I had been thinking about this, and I knew what to say. 'I want to go back to London.'

'London? She probably isn't there, you know.'

'I know. I just want to be back there. To feel like I'm home again. And I want to be a teacher. A history teacher.'

He laughed. 'A history teacher. What, like in a high school?'

'They say "secondary school" in England. But, yes, a history teacher in a high school. I think that would be a good thing to do.'

And Hendrich smiled and looked at me with mild confusion, as if I had ordered the chicken instead of the lobster. 'That's perfect. Yes. Well, we'll just need to get a few things in place and ...'

And as Hendrich kept talking I watched the mouse disappear under the hedge, and into dark shadows, into freedom.

Excerpted from How to Stop Time by Matt Haig. Copyright © 2018 by Matt Haig. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.