Set largely between Hong Kong and the Scottish Highlands, Maggie O’Farrell’s third novel is a story about family and emigration – and the way you can never escape your family, or their history, no matter how far you travel. Stella – spirited, witty and passionate – has fled London to confront the childhood secret which has marked her life, and twinned her destiny with her sister’s. A set of tragic circumstances and a hasty marriage bring Jake from Hong Kong to Britain, where he embarks upon a quest for the father he never knew. When Jake and Stella meet, both their lives are changed forever, but not before Stella’s past is brought painfully out into the open. THE DISTANCE BETWEEN US is a loving, immensely moving and often very funny look at the way families work, which will live with the reader forever, and bring Maggie O’Farrell to her widest readership yet.
