THE SPACE BETWEEN

A dark love story between a girl from Hell and a boy from Earth, both with heavenly heritage.

Daphne is royalty in Hell's city Pandemonium because she's the daughter of Lilith—Adam's first wife—and the fallen angel Lucifer. She's disconnected from her succubae sisters fathered by lesser demons and is closest to her eldest brother, Adam's son Obie. Instead of collecting souls for Hell, Obie's job is to save the Lost Ones, the half-human children of angels. But when Obie leaves Pandemonium for good only to go missing, Daphne's single lead is one of his last cases—Truman, a self-destructive, alcoholic teenager. The narration switches between Daphne's first person and Truman's close third, providing characterization through each other's eyes while affirming the yin-yang quality of the pair: a girl who wants to feel and a boy who feels too much. The race to stay ahead of the angelic demon hunter Azrael and his beast, Dark Dreadful, along with solving the mystery behind Obie's disappearance, balance out the introspective elements of the story. Although the lush descriptions occasionally edge into gothic purple prose, they create beauty in both gritty locations and violent gore alike. The pace accelerates in the last act as the characterizations converge with the plot.

A dreamy, atmospheric take on Judeo-Christian mythology that prioritizes character.