The Midnight Library

In her original life, Nora was engaged to Dan and supported his dream of opening and running a pub in the countryside. But when her mother became deathly ill and Nora felt overwhelmed by the pressure of her relationship with Dan, she backed out of the wedding with only two days’ notice and went to Bedford to visit her mother in the hospital. Her engagement with Dan crumbled afterwards, and ruining his life is one of Nora’s most painful regrets. But when she visits the version of her life where she had married Dan and opened a pub with him, she realizes how pointless her regrets had been. Dan turns out to be a very unsatisfactory husband, constantly drinking, demeaning Nora, and hitting on other women in the pub. Nora remembers how Dan’s personality could be unpleasant back in her original life, and even in other lives where she’s successful without him, he still sends her lonely messages and even stalks her. Dan serves as Nora’s first example of a life turning out to be much worse than expected, letting her comfortably erase her first regret of many.