Description
**Selected for BBC 2 Between the Covers 2023**
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…
Connecting will change everything…
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…
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‘All the drive, curiosity and wonder of his crime and mystery novels … science fiction gains a new author’ – Derek B Miller
‘If you read one life-affirming book this year, make sure it’s this one’ – Nina Pottell, Prima
‘This had all the makings of a film … such relatable characters. Writing a story about a mixed-race boy in the care system and two women so brilliantly is so impressive’ – Sunetra Sarker on Between the Covers
‘So readable and accessible … I was really rooting for the characters’ – Alan Davies on Between the Covers
‘A sci-fi novel that is as moving as it is magical and mysterious. Doug Johnstone has hit it out of the park again’ – Mark Billingham
