Doug Johnstone

When three people suffer strokes after seeing dazzling lights over Edinburgh, then awake completely recovered, they're convinced their ordeal is connected to the alien creature discovered on a nearby beach... an adrenaline-soaked, deeply humane, life-affirming first-contact novel from one of Scotland's most revered authors. Lennox is a troubled teenager with no family. Ava is eight months pregnant and fleeing her abusive husband. Heather is a grieving mother and cancer sufferer. They don't know each other, but when a meteor streaks over Edinburgh, all three suffer instant, catastrophic strokes... ...only to wake up the following day in hospital, miraculously recovered. When news reaches them of an octopus-like creature washed up on the shore near where the meteor came to earth, Lennox senses that some extra-terrestrial force is at play. With the help of Ava, Heather and a journalist, Ewan, he rescues the creature they call 'Sandy' and goes on the run. But they aren't the only ones with an interest in the alien... close behind are Ava's husband, the police and a government unit who wants to capture the creature, at all costs. And Sandy's arrival may have implications beyond anything anyone could imagine...

The Space Between Us

Laura Dobie

Thirty years as a journalist and this is what he'd come to, writing up a dead fish. Ewan looked around Yellowcraigs and grudgingly acknowledged it was beautiful.

Lennox shrugged as they drove off, past millionaires' sprawling houses, large gardens carved out of the woods, houses more like American suburban mansions than Scottish homes. The road ended in a cul-de-sac of five houses. Heather drove round checking for security-camera blind spots, then parked between lampposts and killed the engine. No one spoke, just the ticking of the van's engine. An owl hooted somewhere in the trees. Shit, being rich bought you better nature too.

She wondered about concussion. How could you tell? She felt out of sorts, but then she'd left her home forever and gone on the run with a pregnant woman, a teenager and a seemingly telepathic octopus.

Heather felt herself well up. Paul was right, it Wasn’t about moving on, it was about carrying on with the weight of it all on your shoulders.

The human view of earth was so myopic it was virtually blind. Sandy's arrival made her realise that. Humans were nothing in the scheme of things, she felt that in her bones now.

The Space Between Us quotes

Join the club