The Between: Novel, A

“An extraordinary work of humane imagination . . . call it magic realism with soul.”—Locus “Finely honed . . . always engages and frequently surprises.”—New York Times Book Review A man risks his soul and his sanity to save his family from malevolent forces in this brilliant novel of horror and the supernatural from the award-winning pioneer of speculative fiction and author of the classic My Soul to Keep. When Hilton was a boy, his grandmother sacrificed her life to save him from drowning. Thirty years later, he begins to suspect that he was never meant to survive that accident, and that dark forces are working to rectify that mistake. When Hilton's wife, the only elected African American judge in Dade County, Florida, begins to receive racist hate mail from a man she once prosecuted, Hilton becomes obsessed with protecting his family. The demons lurking outside are matched by his internal terrors—macabre nightmares, more intense and disturbing than any he has ever experienced. Are these bizarre dreams the dark imaginings of a man losing his hold on sanity—or are they harbingers of terrible events to come? As Hilton battles both the sociopath threatening to destroy his family and the even more terrifying enemy stalking his sleep, the line between reality and fantasy dissolves . . . Chilling and utterly convincing, The Between is the haunting story of a man desperately trying to hold on to the people and life he loves as he slowly loses himself.

When Hilton was just a boy, his grandmother sacrificed her life to save him from drowning. Thirty years later, he begins to suspect that he was never meant to survive that accident, and that dark forces are working to rectify that mistake.

When Hilton's wife, the only elected African-American judge in Dade County, FL, begins to receive racist hate mail, he becomes obsessed with protecting his family. Soon, however, he begins to have horrible nightmares, more intense and disturbing than any he has ever experienced. Are the strange dreams trying to tell him something? His sense of reality begins to slip away as he battles both the psychotic threatening to destroy his family and the even more terrifying enemy stalking his sleep. Chilling and utterly convincing, The Between follows the struggles of a man desperately trying to hold on to the people and life he loves, but may have already lost. The compelling plot holds readers in suspense until the final, profound moment of resolution.

darkecho.com - A Guran

Ms. Due has written a haunting first novel that layers the world that is with worlds that might be. Elements of suspense, Ghanaian folk legend, ghost tales, and a family love story are braided into a suspenseful rope that pulls one readily along.

Deftly handling components of an all-too-true-to-life racist psycho, the protagonist's warning and mind-destroying vision-dreams, and a convincing set of characters, the author holds one's attention with a sure style and fast-moving plot. I read its 271 pages straight through in one sitting.

In The Between, the reader is clued in almost immediately that Hilton James' brushes with finality as a child were in no way final and that we are dealing with alternatives to the present reality that he must somehow accept in order to save his family. His struggle to understand what is happening to him and to protect his family are compelling.

The book's characterization of even minor characters is believeable. For those who would like instruction in how to portray a strong non central female character, the author's DeeDee James is a fine example. The two children in the story are a bit too good to be true, but they still manage to be more realistic than most novelized kids.

The Between frightens us because we believe, from the very beginning, that this can and/or did happen. It is a notable debut by an author who is worth hearing from again.

A brilliant novel of horror and the supernatural in which a middle-class family's very existence is threatened by inner and outer demons When Hilton was just a boy, his grandmother sacrificed her life to save him from drowning. Thirty years later, he begins to suspect that he was never meant to survive that accident, and that dark forces are working to rectify that mistake. When Hilton's wife, the only elected African-American judge in Dade County, Florida, begins to receive racist hate mail from a man she once prosecuted, Hilton becomes obsessed with protecting his family. Soon, however, he begins to have horrible nightmares, more intense and disturbing than any he has ever experienced. Are the strange dreams trying to tell him something? His sense of reality begins to slip away as he battles both the psychotic threatening to destroy his family and the even more terrifying enemy stalking his sleep. Chilling and utterly convincing, The Between follows the struggles of a man desperately trying to hold on to the people and life he loves, but may have already lost The effect on an a black family of racist death threats. They are sent to the mother, a judge in Miami, but it is the husband who is most affected. Already unstable because of a near-drowning in childhood, the threats provoke in him nightmares and anger which he takes out on his family. A first novel Thirty years after his grandmother sacrificed her life to save him, Hilton becomes alarmed when his prosecutor wife begins receiving racist hate mail and Hilton starts experiencing troublesome nightmares