A Wonderful Author ! (Diana Gabaldon in general)

Member Name: karenuk

Product:	Diana Gabaldon in general
Date:	28/12/00 (35 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: excellent author, great characters, very readable, good style, a wonderful hero !

Disadvantages: I need more !!

I was recommended to read Cross Stitch by Diana Gabaldon by a friend, who was raving about it ! So I borrowed it from the library, slightly daunted by the size of the novel which is over a thousand pages long ! Around a hundred pages into the novel, I was wishing it was twice as long !

Gabaldon's writing style is excellent and she has a talent for creating characters, so they appear to leap out of the page and into your minds.

Her novels are unique - I would describe them as time-travelling historical romances. They follow the adventures of the two main characters - Claire and Jamie.

For all those women out there, let me just warn you that Jamie is the most amazingly three-dimensional fictional hero you will find and I can guarantee you'll be in love with him by the end of the book !

The first book in the series is Cross Stitch (known as Outlander in the USA)which begins with Claire and her husband, Frank, in 1960s Scotland.

Claire explores the local area, finding an ancient stone circle, where she inadvertently finds herself transported to a Scotland of some two hundred years before.

She meets Jamie Fraser, a Jacobite leader who leads his men through the perils of life in the 1700s, leading up to Culloden.

The next books in the series are Dragonfly In Amber, Voyager and Drums of Autumn. Another novel, Fiery Cross, is planned for publication in 2001.

Gabaldon is hard to pin down into one particular genre. Her novels contain romance, battle scenes, wonderful historical details and realistic characters. Her novels are huge, but wonderful and easy to read.

Cross Stitch is my all-time favourite book and I hope you will give it a try too and let me know what you think.

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