read by Davina Porter
I’ve spent a lot of my life in the Outlander universe. I
started reading the novels when they first came out, but tapered off during the
long wait between Drums of Autumn and The Fiery Cross. When that was finally
published, my curiosity got the best of me and I had to dive back in and find
out what happened to Jamie and Claire—but I had to start again from the
beginning because I’d just forgotten too much.
(Side note: rereading something you really enjoyed and
discovering that it’s still just as delicious on a second read, when you
already know what’s going to happen, is an incredible treat. Ms. Gabaldon
really is a very good writer.)
Finally the TV series happened, but I was super skeptical
about it. I saw the stills on social media, and the actors who played Jamie and
Claire looked nothing like the Jamie and Claire in my head. I didn’t want my
headcanon messed with, so I avoided it. Nevertheless it did have one effect on
me: it reminded me that, after another very long wait, Ms. Gabaldon had
completed another segment of the story arc. More reading to be done! And I’d
never listened to the audiobooks. I had no idea what a treat I was in for: they
were read by Davina Porter, whom I wasn’t yet familiar with.
That woman could read her grocery list out loud, and I’d
listen. For hours.
Then I finished listening to Written in My Own Heart’s
Blood, and I needed more Outlander, so I finally gave in and gave the show a
try. And found, to my surprise, that the actors who play Jaimie and Claire are
actually very appealing once they start moving and talking; the stills, in
which they struck me as looking like enormous waxworks, had been deceptive. (I
think they were *too* beautiful in a way; it made them seem inhuman. With the
human attributes of speech and motion, though, they are simply very very very
beautiful. IMHO.)
And then the recent season ended, and I needed more.
I’d tried one of the Lord John novellas some years back, but
in spite of being set in this universe and centering a character I quite like,
I couldn’t get into it. I can’t even remember now which one it was. I’m just
not a mystery-novel person.
But when I heard about The Space Between, I was intrigued.
It’s about Jaimie’s stepdaughter, Joan, who is headed to France to become a
nun, because she hears voices and knows when people are about to die and she
thinks a religious community is the only place she has any real chance of
finding answers about this, or at least relative safety from being tried as a
witch. It’s also about Michael Murray, Jaimie’s nephew, who is returning to
France after the death of his wife. It’s also about… no, I can’t tell you who
else it’s about, because actually that would be a huge spoiler. Let’s just say
that mysteriousness abounds in this novella.
And it turned out to be a lot of fun. It’s more like a story
arc on the TV series in its pacing than like the novels, but that’s not a bad
thing. And it delves deeper into the occult and stays there longer than most of
her novels, but in a shorter piece like this, that works well. And the
characters are charming and the setting is vivid and there are all the other
hallmarks of Ms. Gabaldon’s writing in this series.
In other words, this is a very worthwhile use of your time
while you wait for the next full-length Jaimie-and-Claire novel. What, you
didn’t know about that? It’s going to be called Go Tell the Bees That I Am
Gone, and it’s due out later this year, most likely. You can read all about it,
including some excerpts, here.
