The Accidental cover art

The Accidental

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

The Accidental

By: Ali Smith
Narrated by: Amaka Okafor, Sheila Atim
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

From the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted, Baileys Women's Prize-winning author of How to Be Both and the critically acclaimed Seasonal Quartet.

The Accidental pans in on the Norfolk holiday home of the Smart family one hot summer. There a beguiling stranger called Amber appears at the door bearing all sorts of unexpected gifts, trampling over family boundaries and sending each of the Smarts scurrying from the dark into the light.

A novel about the ways that seemingly chance encounters irrevocably transform our understanding of ourselves, The Accidental explores the nature of truth, the role of fate and the power of storytelling.

©2020 Ali Smith (P)2020 Penguin Audio Family Life Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Listeners also enjoyed...

 A Room of One's Own cover art
Mechanique cover art
Address Book cover art
The Covenant of Water cover art
North and South cover art
Dead Irish cover art
The Morning Star cover art
The Redemption of Althalus cover art
Gameboard of the Gods cover art
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Dramatised) cover art
The Gift cover art
Wild Cards I cover art

Critic reviews

"Brilliant and engaging, frequently hilarious. Smith makes one look at the world afresh." (Sunday Telegraph)

"A beguiling page-turner. To read The Accidental is to be excited from first to last." (Independent)

"Joyous." (The Times)

All stars
Most relevant
did it for a book group. otherwise would have given up long before the end

tedious

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.