HOW TO BUILD A BOYFRIEND FROM SCRATCH
Sarah Archer
Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF
First published in the United States as ‘The Plus One’ by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York 2019
This edition published by HarperCollinsPublishers 2019
Copyright © Sarah Archer 2019
Cover design by Ellie Game © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2019
Cover images © Shutterstock.com
Sarah Archer asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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Source ISBN: 9780008354299
Ebook Edition © July 2019 ISBN: 9780008335168
Version: 2019-06-17
To Gunnar, who is perfectly human
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Chapter One
Acknowledgments
How to Build a Boyfriend from Scratch
A Conversation with Sarah Archer
Discussion Guide
About the Author
About the Publisher
Of the three people standing onstage, only two of them were people. But that was totally normal to Kelly—one of the people people. Along with Priya, her best friend and fellow robotics engineer (the other person person), she looked out over the audience filling the brightly lit demonstration room: a field trip of fifty or so kids, squirming and grouchy under the cloud of that early January gloom. The children were freshly reinstitutionalized after two halcyon weeks of holiday break, the feral spirit of pajama days and pumpkin pie breakfasts still smoldering in their eyes. And now it was up to Kelly to win their wandering attention.
“I’d like you to meet Zed,” she began tentatively, gesturing to the robot standing beside her. He was one of the first projects she had worked on five years ago when she landed her coveted job at Automated Human Industries, AHI, the boutique cutting-edge robotics company. Zed made a modest impression at first glance, his body a four-foot-tall construction of steel ligaments and exposed wires,