Between Me and You

Tatum is a movie star, and Ben is a film-and-TV writer who never quite lived up to his potential. They met and married when their fortunes were reversed–when Tatum was the struggling actress and Ben the hot young Hollywood star–and their marriage disintegrates as the stars smile on one and not the other. Each has family-related heartache that proves to be an insidious wedge, and when Ben cheats on Tatum with an ex-girlfriend, it seems almost inevitable that the marriage will implode as the tabloids have long predicted. Whether, and how, they find a happy ending is the question that drives this novel.

Told from two alternating perspectives, Between lays out the story of this couple in two ways: Ben tells the story in reverse, searching for the original kernels of true love and partnership; and Tatum tells the story in the present, moving forward, when they’ve crashed and burned. The story isn’t quite compelling enough to warrant revisiting crucial moments numerous times, but the golden Hollywood ending–on New Year’s Eve, no less–ensures that fans of Scotch’s work will find plenty to admire.