Excuse Me, Do You Have a Light? (Perdona, ¿tienes fuego?)

A young man who has given up on love falls hopelessly in love with a girl, unaware that she is trapped in a violent relationship. When he tries to save her, he unleashes a story of passion, jealousy, and betrayal that will drag him into a spiral of guilt he cannot escape.

At just 24 years old, the protagonist of this story has his mind filled with stories he has never dared to tell. He works as a construction laborer in a town he feels he will never escape, trapped in a gray routine he despises and can only endure by taking refuge in writing. Through it, he pours out all his frustrations, and above all, the heartbreak caused by Malena, his last—and most meaningful—relationship. But one Friday night, outside a nightclub in his small town, everything changes. A shy girl, with large brown eyes and a trembling voice, approaches him and asks: “Excuse me, do you have a light?” Her name is Claudia, a university student from Madrid spending the weekend with a friend. In that instant, he feels something he thought had died years ago: a wild, overwhelming spark, an urgent need to write again.

What seemed like a casual encounter becomes a night impossible to forget. He, who has always been a coward in love, finds a courage he never had before and manages to be alone with her. Between them, a connection forms—intense and inevitable. Then comes the first kiss. The kiss that changes everything. But just when the moment seems perfect, Claudia breaks down in tears and confesses the truth that shatters the night: “I have a boyfriend.” His name is Jesús. They have been together for three years. On paper, he is the perfect boyfriend. But she is not happy.

Despite the blow, he refuses to give up. For the first time in a long while, he feels he has found something real. Claudia promises she will leave her boyfriend, and clinging to that hope, he travels to Madrid the following weekend, ready to fight for her. But nothing goes as he imagined. Claudia is distant, cold, evasive. At her apartment, when they try to make love, she suddenly breaks down and cries out in tears: “I don’t want to!” Then he notices a bruise on her thigh. Something dark lies behind her sad gaze. They argue. Confused and hurt, he leaves the apartment in anger. But as soon as he steps outside, the nightmare begins: Jesús and a friend brutally attack him, leaving him shattered.

Beaten, humiliated, and lost, fate leads Malena to find him in the street and help him. She takes him home to care for him, and amid rage, nostalgia, jealousy, and despair—convinced that Claudia has lied to him—he ends up sleeping with her. But immediately afterward, he receives a call that chills him to the bone: Claudia has been raped by Jesús. Three times.

Desperate, he runs to find her, confronts Jesús, and manages to pull her out of that nightmare and take her to the hospital. There, broken inside, Claudia decides to tell everything. And as her world collapses, he stays by her side: he embraces her, protects her, holds her hand when she has no strength left. But inside him burns an unbearable truth: while she was suffering, he slept with his ex-girlfriend Malena.

That same night, unable to bear the weight of guilt, he writes two letters. In one, he confesses his betrayal to Claudia. He tells her he loves her more than he has ever loved anyone, but also that he does not deserve to stay by her side. In the other, he says goodbye to Malena forever. And at dawn, while Claudia sleeps, he quietly leaves the apartment. He walks away with his heart in pieces, but also with a certainty he cannot ignore: he must turn all that pain and all that love into a novel. This novel.

RELEVANT INFORMATION: Fran López Castillo is a Spanish writer of romance and new adult fiction. Throughout his career, he has sold tens of thousands of copies through self-publishing, outside traditional publishing circuits, and has won the Special Bestselling Author Award from Editorial Círculo Rojo, the Alumni Cultural Award from the University of Castilla-La Mancha, and the National Young Author Award from Onda Cero (2025). He also maintains a strong digital presence on social media, where he has tens of thousands of followers.

Excuse Me, Do You Have a Light? is his literary debut, a novel that has sold more than 65,000 copies and reached 34 editions. It balances the classic love story of the romance genre with moments of reflection and the harsh reality of gender-based violence. A novel with extremely high audiovisual potential, rich in emotional intensity, drama, and tension.

AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Film, TV Film.

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.