The Space Between: An Outlander Novella by Diana Gabaldon

 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.