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  • Published: 5 March 2024
  • ISBN: 9781776950812
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $37.00
Categories:

The Space Between





A gripping historical novel set amid the New Zealand Wars in 1860.

As English settlers wage war upon local iwi in colonial Taranaki, two women confront their pasts to survive the present.

Frances is an unmarried Londoner newly landed in New Zealand, 1860, at the dawn of the First Taranaki War. Once well-regarded, her family’s fall from grace sees them struggling to learn the strange etiquette of settler life.

When Frances comes face-to-face with Henry White, the man who jilted her a decade earlier, he’s standing outside Thorpe’s General Store with a sack of flour in his arms. Henry is married now — to the proud and hardy Matāria, who is shunned by her whānau due to this controversial marriage.

As conflict between settlers and iwi rises, both women must find the courage to fight for what is right, even if it costs them everything they know. As their lives intersect in surprising and catastrophic ways, the question remains — will they ever belong, or do their fates lie in the uncomfortable space between?

This gripping historical debut by Lauren Keenan (Te Āti Awa ki Taranaki) is a story of the transformative power of hope, the unbreakable bonds of whenua and family, and the discovery of love in the least likely of places.

  • Published: 5 March 2024
  • ISBN: 9781776950812
  • Imprint: Penguin
  • Format: Trade Paperback
  • Pages: 320
  • RRP: $37.00
Categories:

About the author

Lauren Keenan

Lauren Keenan (Te Āti Awa ki Taranaki) is a writer of creative non-fiction, novels, short stories and popular psychology. Lauren was a winner at the 2017 Pikihuia Awards for Māori writers and a finalist in the 2019 awards. She was also a participant in Te Papa Tupu mentoring programme. Her short stories have appeared in Huia Short Stories collections in 2015, 2017 and 2019. In 2020 her book The 52 Week Project: How I Fixed My Life by Trying a New Thing Every Week for a Year was published, and in 2022 her children’s novel Amorangi and Millie’s Trip Through Time was published. It was a finalist in the 2022 NZ Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and longlisted in the ARA Historical Novel Prize. It also won the 2023 Book Lovers Award. Her debut historical fiction novel The Space Between (Penguin Random House, 2024), set against the backdrop of the New Zealand Wars, is a national bestseller. Lauren has a Master of Arts in Taranaki Māori History.

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Praise for The Space Between

This is a story of the New Zealand Wars, of two characters so well rendered as to bring the women of the time, Māori and Pākehā, to the fore. It’s an historical novel, and a social, feminist history, as well as a drama in the vein of Jenny Pattrick and Fiona Kidman. The Space Between does something new, something pertinent to right now, and it does it very well indeed.

Louise Ward, Napier Courier

[Telling] the story of two women, settler Frances and local Matāria, whose lives become intertwined in surprising ways at the brink of the First Taranaki War in 1860. The excellence of Keenan’s writing is such, the judges agreed, that it is hard to believe this is her first novel, and she skilfully explores themes of love, resilience, and the search for belonging as she depicts people learning to straddle two cultures and shake off the classism – and worse – of Victorian England.’

NZ Booklovers

Keenan, through her writing, builds compelling characters...if you have ever been to the Taranaki region, these places will resonate with you... This novel paints a picture of what it was like to live in colonial New Zealand and gives a detailed description of how these two worlds have collided, not always for the better. Recommended

Cassidy Grace, Read New Zealand

It is early 1860 in Ngāmotu/New Plymouth and the highly contentious purchase of the Waitara Block is being finalised. Pākehā are building stockades around the settlement and the militia are pouring in. Both Māori and Pākehā know that war between them is imminent. These weeks prior to the outbreak of the Taranaki Land Wars act as a historical back drop to Lauren Keenan’s novel, The Space Between...The historical aspects of the novel are fascinating, including the exiling of the Puke Ariki papakāinga from within the stockade and the preparations by both factions for the coming of war. We learn that local Māori required travel passes and had to swear allegiance to Queen Wikitoria to traverse what was once their own land: Matāria is imprisoned in the New Plymouth gaol for not having one of those passes.Both the two lead characters and the handful of secondary characters are well crafted and memorable.

Kelly Ana Morey, Aotearoa New Zealand Review of Books

Keenan’s writing style, both evocative and empathetic, immediately drew me into the raw emotional lives of these women. Her detailed portrayal of New Zealand makes the narrative all the more intriguing and adds further depth to the novel, making it not just a story of personal transformation, but one deeply rooted in the land and its people...an essential read for anyone interested in stories of emotional resilience, cultural identity and female empowerment.

Olivia Wallace, Read New Zealand

Awards & recognition

NZ Booklovers Award

Shortlisted  •  2025  •  NZ Booklovers Award for Adult Fiction Book

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NZ Booklovers Awards 2025 - Winners Announced

​The Space Between by Lauren Keenan has won Best Adult Fiction Book at the 2025 NZ Booklovers Awards.

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NZ Booklovers Awards 2025 Shortlist

See the Penguin Random House NZ books shortlisted for the 2025 NZ Booklovers Awards

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Real Readers Review: The Space Between

Find out what readers really think of Lauren Keenan's historical fiction debut The Space Between

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The Space Between - Book club notes

Delve deeper into this story of love, class and belonging, set at the brink of the New Zealand Wars. A great bookclub pick!