Well, it took me 3 weeks, but I finally finished reading Outlander by Diana Gabaldon. This book, all 850 pages of it, kind of rocked my world. My feelings about the book changed a lot. In the beginning, I was a little bored, but mostly because I was just wondering when the time travel would happen. My boredom quickly transitioned to astonishment by how descriptive it is (& by 'descriptive', I mean pornographic). Somewhere between trying to understand Gaelic & laughing through the sex scenes, I fell in love with the main character, Jamie Fraser. Hot cha!
We've all had our fantasy crushes through the years: Brad Pitt, Jon Hamm, Robert Pattinson, etc., but never did I think a red-headed Highlander from the 18th Century would join the list, albeit one that I've only seen IN MY MIND. Jamie Fraser blows all the other leading men out of the water. Aside from his hulking physical presence, which, by the way, you totally want in an 18th Century Highlander, he's also educated, worldly, compassionate, &, oh yeah, an attentive lover.
This book defies traditional genres. It's part historical fiction, part romance (read: SEX), & part fantasy/science fiction. I actually hate all of these genres, which is why I waited so long to read it. It never appealed to me, but once I started reading it & realized it's merely a love story between two people, one of which who just happened to have time travelled, I was hooked. It's also pretty action packed. This is not a story where two people are lying around in bed all day. This book is filled with fights, captures, beatings, rescues... Once it gets going, it's pretty hard to put down. Ignore everything else & go into it knowing it's a great love story - a great love story that's physically expressed between the two main characters on just about every page.
I loved this book & see reading the rest of the 7-book series in my immediate future. If you're one of the few people who haven't read this book, read it. I need more members for my newly formed Jamie Fraser (Hottest Highlander IN THE WORLD) Fan Club.
From the book jacket:
The year is 1945, Claire Randell, a former combat nurse, is back from the war & reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon - when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach - an "outlander" - in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of Our Lord... 1743.
Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life... and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scot warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire... and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.
See?! READ THIS BOOK! Report back!
EDITED TO ADD: I just remembered I wrote a blog post about the trip to McKay Books that resulted in my purchase of Outlander: The Real Housewives of Galt's Gulch.