Lauren has a problem some women would kill to have. Her attic is producing an endless supply of husbands.
One disappears into the attic, and another emerges, giving her an abundance of choice – but also – how is she supposed to decide which husband is the right one for her? And how many men should she send back into the attic in order to find out?
That's the plot of a new book by debut Australian novelist Holly Gramazio – who has just one husband she calls her own. And if the games designer hadn't by chance found a book in the incorrect place at a bookstore, she may never have met him.
"I've always been interested in the idea of different versions of your life that you might have ended up living if you'd done something just a little bit differently," Gramazio told ABC News.
"A lot of my work in games as a game designer traces back to a book that I found in a second-hand bookshop in Adelaide in around the year 2000, looking for a poetry book, but this book on games had been put in the wrong section.
"And I thought, 'oh, that sounds interesting'. And then I bought it."
Gramazio then discovered online communities and mailing lists of people playing games, before ending up working in games herself.
The Husbands started off as a concept she came up with for a video game, before she pivoted into writing a novel years later.
It was Gramazio's interest in games that led to her meeting her husband – at a games conference.
"I wouldn't have met him if I had not been working in games," she said.
"So, it all goes back to this one book that was put on the wrong shelf."
When Gramazio moved to London from Adelaide in South Australia where she grew up, the idea of an attic crystallised for her.
"People have these attics [in London] and say things like 'I'm not really sure what's up there. I've not looked up there in a year,'" she said.
Gramazio dedicates the book to her "favourite" husband Terry Cavanagh, also a games developer, who she says really likes her book.
"We don't have an attic, so he's not too worried," she joked.
"When I was pulling it together, there were a couple of months where every night or almost every night, I would read him a chapter.
"And he's really bad at hiding his feelings. Every thought he has just passes across his face, almost like the scrolling text that you get at a train station or something.
"So, when something was a bit boring or not working, or a joke didn't quite function, or when he got to the end of a chapter and it was clear that he was glad to be at the end rather than wanting to know what happened next, he could not conceal that at all.
"So, he's an absolute ideal first listener."
While none of the husbands in the novel are based on him, we meet a "chill, cheerful" husband in the book who he resembles, Gramazio says.
Is there such a thing as the perfect match?
Lauren changes with each new husband and Gramazio too says she's adapted to a better version of herself with Cavanagh on board.
"I'm a little bit more easygoing than I used to be.
"I sleep in a bit later, because he's a late riser.
"I have cats, because he loves cats," she said pointing to her cat, Gelato.
"He's often up for just trying a thing … 'shall we go to the bakery around the corner, or shall we paint this wall a really bright orange that might turn out to be a bad idea. But also, if it's not, it would be a real delight'.
"And he doesn't get too caught up in optimising and making spreadsheets and that kind of thing.
"And because I am myself, quite bad at making decisions, sometimes having someone who is quite up for things and for doing things that might not work out, but if they do, then great is, I think, a very good match for me."
But had Gramazio seen his online dating profile – she would never have spoken to him.
"After we'd been dating for a month or six weeks, one evening he sat up and was like, 'Oh, I forgot to delete my dating profile!' And I said 'Oh, well you've got to show me'.
"And he showed me and I read through it. And it was fine. There was nothing wrong with it. But I would definitely not have messaged him.
"It was very cheery … almost every sentence had an exclamation mark, and half of it was about a video game that he was working on at the time."
Gramazio says she was drawn to men who had "slightly clever jokes" on their profiles or possessed a "slight cynicism".
"And he's great. I like him so much. And it was really fascinating to see that if I had come across him in the apps in an online dating context, then I would never have got in touch with him.
"But I'm lucky that that's not how I encountered him."
It's the message she hopes people take away from The Husbands – that in an online dating world of apparent choice, people are often in the type of mood where they try to find something wrong with someone, whereas if they met them in real life, it might have worked.
"People get stuck in the sort of online dating well of 'oh, here's a spelling mistake, couldn't possibly date someone who would make a spelling mistake in their online profile' or 'I don't like that T-shirt, couldn't possibly do that,' like finding things to be deal breakers or red flags in a way that I think we mostly wouldn't if you met the people in a less weird and intensive next, next, next, next next-focused context."
The Husbands by Holly Gramazio is available as an ebook, audiobook and in bookstores
