Diana Gabaldon: Author of the Outlander Novels

Over the years I have read many, many books ranging from horror stories to time travel, with a smidgen of romance in between. But about four years ago, while I was browsing in my local WH. Smiths book counter I came across a book that would totally change my way of reading.
Before I read these books, a novel was just that. A Novel.
Then I discovered Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series.

The funny thing was that I have never been particularly partial to women writers. I don't really know why, maybe it was the romance, or the slushiness that made me pull a face and shove it quickly back on the shelf of the book store.
But this day I picked up the book Cross Stitch, flicked through it and put it back on the shelf. It was a woman Author after all.
But something made me go back and have another look. Reading the first page I began to realise that actually this wasn't like the others.
It wasn't slushy or soppy, the main character Claire didn't fall into the arms of the first man that was handsome.
Something was going on.

So I read the second page and the third. Cutting a long story short, I must have stood there for a least twenty minutes, more engrossed every second.
So I bought it.
Then I did the one thing that I have never done before with an Author that I had never read.
I went straight back to the shelf and bought the second and third in the series.
Okay I thought, I am either mad or I had seen something in the books that I hadn't discovered before.
It had everything good in them that I liked, History, Time travel, blood guts and gore. But there was more. Something that seemed to be missing from other novels.
I could smell it. Taste it. Hear the roar of the battles, Feel the emotions of the characters, hear them laugh, there's a lot of humour in the books, mainly when something around them is so horrible and nasty that if they didn't laugh they would crumble. The love between the main characters set against the horrors of war and disease is stronger because of it's desperation amidst the horrors around them. The characters are so real that when you put the books down after turning the last page you cannot
get them out of your mind for days. Jamie and Claire are real and if anybody says any different, you'll have to answer to me.
And Jamie Fraser, ah Jamie Fraser, every woman should have one!
Seriously though Let me explain. I will just give you a taste of what the books are about because I don't want to spoil them for you.
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Cross Stitch
Claire Randall accidentally goes back through time and finds herself in Scotland two hundred years ago. Amid pestilence and war she finds herself turning to young Jamie Fraser, a soldier.
Where everything and everybody are different to anything she has ever known, Claire gets drawn into the loyalties and betrayals of the time.
Dragonfly in Amber
This on is set in Scotland in 1960 and Scotland And France at the time of the Jacobite rebellion.
Voyager
Returning to her own time, Claire is pregnant and tired, but cannot forget her lover Jamie. So in desperation she decides to return to the past, not knowing if he is dead or alive.
The Drums of Autumn.
Jamie goes to live in the mountains, aware that his daughter Brianna is safe in the future. but Brianna decides to travel to the past to search for him..
The Fiery Cross
Jamie and Claire get caught up in the American War of Independence.
A Breath of Snow and Ashes.
The year is 1772 and the Governor asks Jamie Fraser to fight for King and country, but Claire knows what is coming, and she is also concerned about
Jamie, after reading about his death in a newspaper clipping.
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There is also a character called Lord John in the books, and he has been given a starring role in his own set of books, This character is brilliant, the situations he gets himself into are very funny. All these and many more you can check out in the link.
You can read her latest Novel in the outlander series called An Echo in the Bone, and the series will continue, with the next book in the series out in 2012.

In the meantime you can read all of her other stories of Lord John, and Jamie Fraser in her other books that she is writing in between taking a break from her main Outlander series.

There is also a fantastic CD that you can buy. It is music based on a musical that hasn't actually been set on stage just yet, but its possible that in the future this will happen. If you love the Jamie and Claire novels then you will love this.