Guest Post with Anne Corlett ~ JeanBookNerd

Photo Content from Penguin Random House

Anne is originally from the north-east, but somehow slid down the map and finished up in the south-west. She now lives near Bath with her partner and three young sons.

Anne returned to writing in 2011 after many years working as a criminal lawyer in London. This was slightly unfortunate timing, given that she was right in the middle of relocating to Somerset with her family who seemed to feel that a little less novel-writing and a little more packing might be warranted. They probably had a point.

Over the next couple of years Anne began to build a career as a freelance writer, fitting this work in around her day job as a solicitor. In 2012 she met her agent, Lisa Eveleigh, at the York Festival of Writing. Since then her work has been published in various magazines and anthologies and her short fiction has won, placed or been shortlisted in various national and international awards.

In 2014 Anne began an MA in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University. Her initial MA novel was put on hold after a trip back up to the Northumberland coast triggered the idea for The Space Between the Stars which was acquired by Pan Macmillan in January 2016. It is currently available as an e-book on all platforms, and will be released in hardback on 1 June in the UK and 13 June in the US.

DELETED SCENE FROM THE SPACE BETWEEN THE STARS
This section was part of a deleted chapter following on from the rescue of Mila and Tam. The group traced a distress signal to a prison where they found a young man locked in an isolation cell.

Callan raised his voice, cutting across the frantic ramblings. ‘What’s your name?’

There was a pause.

‘My name?’

‘Yes, your name,’ Callan said. ‘You do have a name, don’t you?’ He glanced along the corridor at the regimented line of locked doors. ‘Or is it just a number these days?’

‘Davey,’ the voice said, stumbling over the tail end of Callan’s question, as though he had to get it out quickly. ‘I’m Davey.’

‘How old are you?’ Callan asked, his tone entirely level, as though the conversation was just something to pass the time while he paid for his groceries or queued at a bar.

‘Twenty-one,’ Davey replied. His voice sounded closer, as though he was pressed tight against the door.

‘Okay, Davey,’ Callan said. ‘Now this is the big question, and I want you to be truthful with me, because if I think you’re lying then I might decide it’s too much of a risk to open this door. No,’ as Davey tried to interrupt. ‘Just listen to the question and then answer me.’ He paused, and glanced at Jamie and Lowry, before turning back to the door. ‘What did you do, Davey?’

‘What?’

Callan drummed his fingers on the metal surface of the door. ‘It’s a simple enough question. What did you do to finish up in a place like this?’

‘I killed someone.’

This chapter was deleted because Davey didn’t make it into the final draft at all. While I rather liked him, I realised fairly early on that he was less of a character and more of a plot device, intended to throw up moral questions and dilemmas. He therefore went into a cabin on the ship at the end of this chapter, and never came out again. I made a note to remove him at the editing stage, and then ploughed on without him.

He was briefly resurrected in two slightly different forms, much later on in the book, but once again, his purpose was too limited to justify his space on the page. As Alec, he loomed in a dark alleyway, causing fright and consternation, followed by moral questions and dilemmas, and as Ciaren, he popped up in a vegetable garden, causing considerably less consternation, but still a few moral questions.

So Davey was abandoned to his twilight-zone existence in a cabin that no longer exists. He wasn’t quite forgotten, however. During the final editing process, I occasionally came across conversations which didn’t quite make sense, because of an unattributed remark, or someone seeming to reply to a non-existent question. When this happened, it was usually the ghost of Davey putting in an appearance in the text.

I still miss him a little bit!

In a breathtakingly vivid and emotionally gripping debut novel, one woman must confront the emptiness in the universe—and in her own heart—when a devastating virus reduces most of humanity to dust and memories.

All Jamie Allenby ever wanted was space. Even though she wasn’t forced to emigrate from Earth, she willingly left the overpopulated, claustrophobic planet. And when a long relationship devolved into silence and suffocating sadness, she found work on a frontier world on the edges of civilization. Then the virus hit...

Now Jamie finds herself dreadfully alone, with all that’s left of the dead. Until a garbled message from Earth gives her hope that someone from her past might still be alive.

Soon Jamie finds other survivors, and their ragtag group will travel through the vast reaches of space, drawn to the promise of a new beginning on Earth. But their dream will pit them against those desperately clinging to the old ways. And Jamie’s own journey home will help her close the distance between who she has become and who she is meant to be...

Praise for THE SPACE BETWEEN THE STARS

“With its unique plot and luminous prose, it’s hard to believe that The Space Between the Stars is a debut novel. Anne Corlett understands the complexities and frailties of the human heart and captures it brilliantly on the page. Don’t let the setting fool you—this is a story for any age, combining love, loss, grief, hope, and possibilities all in one delicious book. Definitely one for my keeper shelf.”—Karen White, New York Times bestselling author of The Night the Lights Went Out

“Anne Corlett is a writer with huge potential, and I’m looking forward to her future works.”—Claire North, author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

“[A] fast-moving and gripping ‘end of the worlds’ tale focused on the efforts of flawed survivors to ensure the end is not the end of humanity.”—Jack Campbell, New York Times bestselling author of Vanguard

“An original thinker and a very, very effective writer.”—Fay Weldon, author of Before the War

You can purchase The Space Between the Stars at the following Retailers: