Awarded three stars on Goodreads
Part mystery, part drama, and part historical fiction – THE SPACE BETWEEN WORDS tells two stories. The first one belongs to Jessica, a young woman who survives a terrorist attack while visiting Paris and then struggles to recover a sense of emotional well-being. The second story belongs to a brave group of French Huguenots, forced to leave their home during the 1600s for safety in England.
What ties the two stories together is an antique box Jessica is drawn to in a remote French antique store and the quest she begins to find out its origins. Helped initially by locals, including a brother and sister who run the B&B where Jessica is vacationing, Jessica and her new friends eventually travel to England to follow the box’s story. Finding answers about the box becomes increasingly tied to Jessica’s understanding of her own post-trauma struggle.
It’s an interesting story, although somewhat flawed. The characters sometimes lapse into conversations about religious beliefs that drifts into preachy territory and isn’t quite believable as dialog. And the author doesn’t seem to trust that the reader will understand the link between the two stories without some heavy handed explanation.
But there’s a lot of promise here and the author is still young. So, I will be keeping an eye out for her future offerings.
More about Michele Phoenix.
Toby A. Smith 