Dean Harris finally has everything he ever wanted. The only problem? He might still be asleep.

Writer Dean Harris lives in the narrow gap between “visionary” and “fraud.” He’s spent years hammering at the gates of success, waiting for the world to notice him while showering praise on everyone else. Until the impossible happens: his latest novel becomes a global sensation. The critics are calling him a genius. The bookstores can’t keep his work on the shelves.

Then he wakes up.

Stuck again in a reality of unread pages and circular spaces, Dean is haunted by the success that feels right there… just out of reach. But as the seeds and echoes of his dream bleed into his waking hours, Dean realizes that maybe the vision wasn’t simply an “accidental future”—maybe it was a map.

To find the future he saw in his sleep, he’ll have to face himself. And maybe stop chasing the ghost of the man he wants to be and tackle the life he’s actually living: the family he’s overlooked and a relationship with his girlfriend, Claire, that’s fraying under the weight of his ambition.

Is his life a predestined path toward failure, or has he been looking for validation in all the wrong places? Perhaps Dean Harris’s real story starts tomorrow. If he can realign his accidental future.

Utilizing a nonlinear six-part structure, The Accidental Future of Dean Harris is a journey through memory, subconscious desire, and the seeds we plant in our own past.

Perfect for fans of Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library, David Mitchell’s structuring in Cloud Atlas, and Mitch Albom’s soulful explorations of life and purpose.

From the Author

I’ve always been fascinated by the “invisible” versions of our lives—the ones that exist only in our late-night “what-ifs.” Dean Harris is a character who represents all of us who have ever looked at a successful stranger and thought, That should have been me.

Writing The Accidental Future of Dean Harris was my way of exploring the gap between the success we chase and the happiness we actually need. I wanted to write a story for anyone who feels like they are currently living in the “draft” version of their life, waiting for the real story to begin. Like the works of Mitch Albom, I hope this book serves as a gentle reminder that our “accidental” moments are often the most meaningful ones.

I can’t wait for you to meet Dean—and perhaps, in his journey, find a little bit of your own map back to the present.

More From the Author

We are all the unreliable narrators of our own lives. For Dean Harris, that isn’t just a metaphor, it’s a crisis.

I wrote this book, in part, because I wanted to poke fun at the “tortured genius” trope while asking a very serious question: If you were given a map to your perfect future, how long would spend trying to follow it, never arriving at your destination? Or would you finally look back at the messy, beautiful reality you’ve left behind? Is life about the journey’s end, or is it about the journey itself?

Fans of stories like Matt Haig’s The Midnight Library or David Mitchell’s nonlinear structuring with seeds, echoes, and callbacks will find a familiar friend in Dean’s predicament. This is a story about the danger of trying so hard to get everything you think you want, only to realize you were looking at the map upside down. Thank you for giving Dean (and me) a place on your bookshelf.