#Blogtour #Review - The Space Between Us by Doug Johnstone

The Space Between Us
Doug Johnstone
Orenda Books, 2 March 2023
Available as: PB, 276pp, audio, e
Source: Advance copy
ISBN(PB): 9781914585449

I'm grateful to Karen at Orenda Books for an advance copy of The Space Between Us to consider for review, and to Anne Cater for inviting me to take part in the book's blogtour.

In his new novel Doug Johnstone - whose most recent works include the Skelfs detective series set at an Edinburgh undertaker's - really doesn't hang about, plunging us right into a fantastical plot with three varied and intriguing protagonists. Told in short chapters with dramatic changes of view, we quickly learn who is who.

Lennox is a lonely teenager living in a children's home. 

Ava is pregnant and trying to escape her coercive, in fact outright abusive, husband. 

Heather has lost her daughter and her husband, she has cancer and, when we first see her, is trying to end her own life.

All are about to have their destinies and lives changed when they encounter first, a strange light in the sky which leaves them hospitalised then miraculously healed, and secondly, a peculiar octopus-like creature washed up on the Edinburgh shoreline and affectionately named Sandy by the three.

In chapters told from their alternate perspectives, and those of a couple of other characters who are drawn in, we follow events during a frantic road trip across Scotland with several different but equally sinister authorities intent on capturing Sandy (I have tagged this review "Men in black") and a furious husband chasing down Ava.  (An interesting juxtaposition). The different viewpoints make for a clever technique - Ava, Lennox and Heather have a lot to come to terms with, both their own variously troubled lives and Sandy's unique nature. Their developing relationships with each other complicate this, and plot shock about. Johnstone's approach allows him, though all this, to both reveal and, at  times, to conceal, just what is happening, allowing the author sometimes to not describe things from the perspective of whoever has the clearest view, preserving ambiguity and building tension.

That ambiguity is at the heart of the story - we know how the scared authorities will react to Sandy, we know that Ava's husband has no good intentions for her, but what we don't know is how the gang will ultimately process what's going, how they will assimilate the incredible moral challenge presented by Sandy's existence and his need. Nor how those on whom whey will depend for help will react.

It all comes down to empathy, to the balance between their fears for their own future and their capacity for love, their ability to go on hoping. 

I don't want to over intellectualise this or make it sound over solemn, because its not. It's the very opposite. The Space Between Us is a thriller about human (and non human) nature, but it's a fun read, morally clear in that you can happily hiss at a couple of the characters and root for the others, (even if at times they do play fast and loose with legal niceties). As a science fiction adventure (that's not really a spoiler) the setup is by no means original - I could draw parallels with at least one well known film and a couple of other recent novels - but Johnstone brings to it his ability to create fresh and lively characters who quickly become very real to his readers. They are people you feel for - full of complexities and quirks and above all very very human. 

Additionally, the Scottish setting gives the whole thing an air of familiarity and localness which makes it all seem very plausible. And who doesn't love a good road trip?

In summary, The Space Between Us is a fresh and enjoyable story which explores some fundamental themes about what it is to be connected - or not. Tears may well have been shed over it... definitely recommended!

For more information about The Space Between Us, see the Orenda Books website here, and also the other steps on the tour, listed in the poster below.

You can buy The Space Between Us from your local bookshop or online from Bookshop UK, Hive Books, Blackwell's, WH Smith, Foyles, Waterstones or Amazon.