The Making of a Marchioness (includes The Methods of Lady Walderhurst) by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Audiobook narrated by Lucy Scott

Book Blurb:
This two-part adult fairytale by the author of The Secret Garden combines a charming Cinderella story with an ironic look at class structure and the Edwardian marriage market in turn-of-the-century London.

Emily Fox-Seton is a simple but good-hearted woman struggling to make ends meet while attempting to maintain the dignity of someone distantly related to the aristocracy. The Marquis of Walderhurst is an awkward but eligible bachelor being comically pursued by a pageant of unmarried ladies. When the Marquis surprises everyone by giving his attentions to Emily, he makes himself a fairy prince in her eyes. But marrying her prince is not the end of Emily’s troubles, as the forces of envy are more cunning and dangerous than she yet understands. Will Emily’s innocence be her downfall after all?

My Review:

Story: 3.5 stars
Narrator: 4 stars

Goodreads bookshelves: audiobook, books-read-in-2014, classic-british-lit, historical-romance, hist-19th-c-romantic-victorian
Read from February 17 to 24, 2014

Yes, I’ll freely admit that, even though I had this book on my shelf for years, I didn’t make the decision to read (well, listen to) it until after watching The Making of a Lady on PBS a few weeks ago (and I’ve pre-ordered the DVD!). While the “gothic” elements of the story seemed odd in the movie, I have to admit, they’re even odder in the book . . . because they’re given so much less malice and true menace first by how they’re written about (and in whose POV) and by how the circumstances are handled.

Emily Fox-Seton is a genteel woman of little means who hires herself out as an event planner, secretary, and personal shopper to women in high society London in early 1900/1901. At thirty-four years old, she has been on her own for quite some time and she has learned how to make a shilling stretch as far as possible. She lives in a rented room in a boarding house owned and run by Mrs. Cupp and her daughter, Jane, whose kindness she appreciates and who are quite fond of her in return.

One of Emily’s employers, Lady Maria Bayne, who truly likes Emily (in addition to liking what Emily can do for her) invites Emily to come to a country house party—and to act as Lady Maria’s companion, which means she gets to participate in the social activities for the most part. There are several random other characters here, but the most important guest is Lady Maria’s cousin, the marquis James Walderhurst. Lady Maria lets Emily know that Lord Walderhurst (who is in his mid-50s) lost his first wife and son many, many years ago; and if he wants an heir to inherit his title/estates, he must remarry and have another son. Emily sees her role at the house party to make sure the other few young women there—a wealthy American girl and the poor Lady Agatha—are seen to their greatest advantage. At every opportunity, she speaks well of each of the other young women to Walderhurst.

On a day when Walderhurst and all of the other guests have gone out for a drive/site seeing, Lady Maria discovers that the fish monger who was supposed to supply them for dinner didn’t have anything. The next closest one is in another town four miles away. But all of the carriages (and I suppose all the riding horses, too???) are out, so Emily, even though she’s fatigued from the eventful day before, volunteers to walk the four miles to get fish for dinner. On this walk, Emily reads a letter delivered to her shortly before she left the estate and she discovers that the Cupps are selling their house and moving out to the country. What does she want them to do with all of her stuff? This, of course, comes as quite a blow to Emily. On her way back to the house, she breaks down and stops to have a good cry. When Walderhurst returns to the estate after the outing and learns about the errand Lady Maria sent Emily on, he immediately goes out with his phaeton to retrieve her. He finds Emily on the moors crying and, moved by . . . love (? he’s not an overly sentimental man) he proposes to her.

This is the end of Part 1, which was a novella originally published as The Making of a Marchioness. And it’s only about the first 20-25% of the book.

In Part 2, originally published as The Methods of Lady Walderhurst, Emily and Walderhurst marry. She meets his cousin, and heir, Alec Osborn and Alec’s half-Indian wife, Hester. Having believed for years that he would inherit the estates and wealth that go along with the Walderhurst title, Alec is none-too-happy that James has remarried. At first, he and Hester (who is pregnant) tell themselves that at her age, Emily is unlikely to give Walderhurst a son/heir. But then, of course, the inevitable happens. After Walderhurst traipses off to India on a diplomatic mission (unlike in the movie, he isn’t in the Army in the book), Emily discovers she, too, is with child. She invites the Osburns to live in a cottage on the estate, and that’s when things start getting all pseudo-gothicy.

Because we’re treated to Alec’s and Hester’s viewpoints in the story, we’re at no time unaware that he wishes Emily harm. While most of the potential danger is laid off at Ameerah’s feet (Hester’s former ayah, now maid), Alec seethes with malice and hatred toward Emily most of the time. Hester isn’t much better. She seems to hate Emily as much as Alec does . . . though when she realizes just how close to being off his rocker her husband is, she starts to realize how wrong it is to wish harm to another, much less to do harm to another.

In the movie version, Emily not only stays at Palstrey (one of Walderhurst’s country estates where they take up residence after leaving London), she drinks the drugged milk, even after commenting that she doesn’t trust the Osborns or Ameerah. In the book, Hester who has been treated better by Emily than by just about anyone else in her life, not only saves her from the drugging, but urges her to leave Palstrey to get away from Alec and Ameerah and what they might do to her. Emily does this and goes to London, first staying with Mrs. Cupp and Jane in the Cupps’ old house, and then, after telling her doctor everything, at his advice she moves back into the Walderhurst townhouse in Berkeley Square.

Walderhurst, whose return from India was delayed by his own fever, finally returns home to learn that not only has Emily had a child (she never told him in her letters, many of which went astray, and at least one of which was intercepted by Alec), but she is also on death’s door with doctors and nurses hovering over her.

In a scene worthy of any Disney movie or Jane Austen adaptation, Walderhurst kneels beside the bed calling to her—which brings her back from the “white sea” of death and back into the world of the living. Which is all very sweet and would have been a great way to end the story.

But then we’re treated to a “four years later” type of scene in which Hester, now widowed, and her daughter have been living with Emily and Walderhurst ever since Alec “accidentally” shot himself with a shotgun he didn’t know was loaded while he was drunk. So, instead of a romantic ending, we at least do learn that “justice” (or Just Desserts) has been served. But it was a rather lackluster ending.

The Making of a Marchioness and The Methods of Lady Walderhurst were published in 1901, the year Queen Victoria died. Several times in the book, Emily’s stature and demeanor are commented upon as being “early Victorian” and “Mid-Victorian” (and once also as a “Thacheryian saint”). It’s funny to me that, even less than a year after Queen Victoria’s death, levels of Victorian attitudes and behaviors had already been defined.

One major issue I had with the book is Burnett’s overuse of the word ingenuous. It’s apparently her favorite adjective/adverb. Everything about Emily is ingenuous and she does everything ingenuously. This is one of those things that is likely more noticeable in the audio version than the print version.

Where the script writers and filmmaker got it right was keeping the danger to Emily present, rather than removing her from it and having her hiding from the fear rather than living with it, as happens in the book. They also got (very, very) right the development of the relationship between Walderhurst and Emily. I loved the slow-burn between them in the film version. Here, there’s almost no emotional or intellectual connection between them, except for the fact that she moons over his letters when he’s gone, and he comes to have “tender” thoughts about her upon reading her letters while he’s convalescing. Though, in the end, his outburst that he would rather have Emily than the son she bore him, is very sweet. What the movie got wrong: Jane Cupp. Never in the book is Jane anything but completely loyal to Emily. It is Jane who saves Emily from disaster more than once, and it is she who loses sleep to watch over Emily when she realizes the threat to her mistress’s life.

It was quite interesting seeing the original depiction of these characters and the story as the author imagined it instead of just the 21st century adaptation’s take on them. Gothic romances were quite popular in the late-Victorian/early Edwardian era; but, unfortunately, this doesn’t work as one of those, even though it does have some of the elements. We also see clearly depicted the attitude of that era toward those of Indian birth/descent, though much of this is ameliorated by Emily’s attitude—and her suggestion that Jane read Uncle Tom’s Cabin (apparently Burnett’s favorite novel as a young girl) to understand the plight of “the blacks” (which, apparently, Indians were called in England at this time).

Had I not seen the movie and fallen so deeply in love with Emily and Walderhurst, I might not have stuck this one out. But I’m glad I did. It will never be a favorite, but I’m glad I read it.

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My rating matrix:
5 STARS = one of the best I’ve ever read
4 STARS = a great read, highly recommended
3 STARS = it was okay/not a favorite
2 STARS = I didn’t enjoy it all that much, not recommended
1 STAR/DNF = I hated it and/or Did Not Finish it

Love Overdue by Pamela Morsi

I’ll admit, the cover is one of the main things that first drew me to pick this book to read.

Book Blurb:
Buttoned-up book lover DJ is all sensible shoes, drab skirts and studious glasses. After an ill-advised spring-break-fueled fling left her mortified, she’s committed to her prim and proper look. When she’s hired by a rural library in middle-of-nowhere Kansas, she finally has the lifestyle to match-and she can’t wait to get her admin on.

But it’s clear from day one that the small-town library is more interested in circulating rumors than books. DJ has to organize her unloved library, win over oddball employees and avoid her flamboyant landlady’s attempts to set her up with the town pharmacist. Especially that last part-because it turns out handsome Scott Sanderson is her old vacation fling! She is not sure whether to be relieved or offended when he doesn’t seem to recognize her. But with every meeting, DJ finds herself secretly wondering what it would be like to take off her glasses, unpin her bun and reveal the inner vixen she’s been hiding from everyone-including herself.

My Review:

Story: 3 stars

Goodreads bookshelves: books-read-in-2014, contemporary-romance
Read from January 26 to February 18, 2014

There were lots of things to like about this book, especially the setting and the cast of secondary characters.

Unfortunately, there were as many or more things not to like about this book, and they tended to be more problematic.

The setup has potential. Eight years ago, prudish Dorothy Jarrow (D.J.) went to the beach for spring break and her 21st birthday just to see what she’s missing. She ended up having a mind-blowing one-night-stand with a handsome stranger. Now, eight years later, having both regretted and looked back with some longing on that night ever since, she’s a tightly wound, buttoned up librarian (seriously—bun, glasses, gray skirt suits!) who’s just accepted a job as the head of a library in Verdant, Kansas—mostly at the machinations of the head of the library board, Viv Sanderson (possibly the only person on the library board, for though we meet a lot of other townsfolk, we never meet another library board member). Viv is a widow whose son is the town pharmacist, like his late father before him; and she’s convinced that D.J. and Scott belong together—to the point she hired a P.I. to investigate D.J. before offering her the job, without ever meeting in person (from an online resume/interview).

So, of course, Viv’s son, Scott Sanderson, turns out to be “the hot guy” from spring break eight years before. But while D.J. remembers him clearly, he doesn’t recognize her (even though he’s dreamed/fantasized about that night ever since, too). However, out of fear that he will, D.J. becomes an absolute shrew and treats him like garbage whenever they’re thrown together. Which is, of course, often. Scott, having gone through a public and embarrassing romance, wedding, and divorce followed by a brief (and regretted) affair with a married woman, SHOULD be jaded when it comes to relationships. But there’s never really a glimmer that he’s learned much from his previous relationships—other than that he’s still “in love” with his “sparkle girl” from spring break eight years before (which happened before he got married).

As with all romance novels, the reader knows it’s inevitable that the two main characters are going to end up together. What we anticipate is how they end up together—it’s the relationship building that keeps me engaged in a romance novel. There wasn’t a whole lot of that here.

D.J, who’s supposed to be someone who grew up with emotionally distant parents who sent her off to boarding school as a teenager and then died shortly thereafter (or something), doesn’t come across as emotionally stunted as someone who grew up like that would be. She does have a hard time trusting people (abandonment issues), but then at other times, she’s easy go lucky and just goes with the flow. It’s not a contradiction that works well. And then her reaction to Scott—the Insta-Hate when she first sees him upon arriving in Verdant—is so over the top as to make her almost unlikable.

So the tension between them for the first half or so of the book is the horrid way she treats him because she’s afraid he’s going to remember her from spring break and think . . . something. It’s never really clarified what she’s afraid he’ll think/say about her if he does remember it’s her. After all, he’d also be revealing that, while dating/engaged to his childhood sweetheart, he took off and went to South Padre Island for spring break and had a one-night stand with a girl whose name he never even asked.

There are several flashback scenes taking us back to their spring break encounter (in detail, with considerable repetition from segment to segment—done, I’m sure, to get the “sexy-time” stuff in, since the relationship in the present time doesn’t lend itself to any of that until toward the end of the book). We learn that he bought her a piece of cheap jewelry which he has obsessed over ever since—and why he thinks of her as his “sparkle girl.”

Then there are Viv’s viewpoint scenes which . . . added nothing to the plot or flow of the story. for the most part, they consist of monologues of Viv talking either to D.J.’s dog or to the grave of her late husband. And she’s not even talking about anything that’s important to the story—most of it is either backstory or inanity. Her little subplot turned out to be very weak and unnecessary. She did have a couple of bright spots of eccentricity. But she could have been a fun eccentric without having viewpoint scenes breaking up the (slight) forward momentum of the story.

Oh, did I mention it’s harvest time in Kansas? Readers of this book are treated to multiple looooooonnnnnngggggg discourses on what harvest time is like in a small Kansas town, what the process is, what heavy equipment is used, and so on. Yes, the author apparently did her research and wanted to make sure all of her readers knew she had done her research.

Something that I did quite enjoy about this book are all of the secondary characters in this small town. Some were quite stereotypical and almost directly from The Wizard of Oz (after all, “Emerald City” is mentioned on the first page of the story): the old “witch” of a former librarian who tries to sabotage D.J. at every step; the “cowardly lion” of the older man with autism/asperger’s who hides in the stacks at the library; Suzy, one of the bookmobile drivers (if she only had a brain!); and Amos, the other bookmobile driver, a “Gulf War” vet whom everyone has written off as having given up on romance (if he only had a heart!). So does that make Scott the wizard and Viv Glenda? Not sure on those two.

So, after several encounters with Scott, in which she treats him like gum stuck to the sole of her shoe—including a “date” that both claim isn’t, when Viv asks him to take her out and introduce her around town—D.J. suddenly decides to stop being so hateful to him. And Scott never even reacts to this about-face in her behavior toward him. He’s spent the first part of the book wondering what he did wrong (because, after all, everyone else in town talks about how nice she is, so he must have done something wrong for her to be so horrid toward him, right?), but he never has a single thought about the abrupt change in her attitude toward him.

Next thing you know, bada-bing, bada-boom, they’re making out in his car on the side of the road. And although he’s realized by this time that D.J. reminds him of his “sparkle girl,” and he’s started seeing D.J.’s face in his recurring fantasy about the encounter, he still hasn’t made the connection. And making out doesn’t seem to help him make the connection either. Huh? If it was so memorable that he’s been fantasizing about it for eight years, wouldn’t he be able to put 2 and 2 together?

Okay, I’ll leave it with that rather than give away the rest of the story.

However, I MUST discuss the “end” of the story.

*******SPOILERS*******

After a tragic circumstance that brings about each one’s epiphany moment, when D.J. is having an angsty internal debate as to whether or not to come clean with Scott about their spring break encounter, he finds the piece of jewelry that he bought her the night of their one-night stand (she kept it, all this time!). So, naturally, this is going to lead to a conversation clearing everything up, declarations of love, and maybe even a proposal. Right?

WRONG! The chapter leaves off with Scott looking from the chain to D.J. and then . . . wham—it’s eight years later, and they’re back on the beach with their precious little girls discussing if they want to try for a third child, a boy, or if they’re satisfied with two kids and knowing that they have the best sex in Kansas.

This has to be one of the worst endings to a romance novel I’ve ever read. Sure, I’ve read a few in which the wrong people end up together (multiple-character-arc stories, of course) or in which the ending is so cheesy it made me bilious. And I’ve never made it a secret that I HATE epilogues that are all about the “precious babies” that result from the relationship. But to not even resolve anything? To cut away from the big reveal and what should have been the climax of the plot? This was the point the whole plot was supposed to be building toward. It was all build up and no follow through. And since that’s the last impression the book leaves with the reader, it was a very unfortunate choice.

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My rating matrix:
5 STARS = one of the best I’ve ever read
4 STARS = a great read, highly recommended
3 STARS = it was okay/not a favorite
2 STARS = I didn’t enjoy it all that much, not recommended
1 STAR/DNF = I hated it and/or Did Not Finish it

I just finished watching the miniseries based on this, and the other Cousins’ War novels, so I thought it would be a good idea to post this review while the miniseries is still fresh in my mind.

The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
Audiobook narrated by Susan Lyons

Book Blurb:
The White Queen is the story of Elizabeth Woodville, a woman of extraordinary beauty and ambition, who secretly marries the newly crowned Edward IV. Elizabeth rises to the demands of her exalted position and fights for her family’s dominance, but despite her best efforts, her two sons become pawns in a famous unsolved mystery that has confounded historians for centuries: the lost princes in the Tower of London. In this dazzling account of the deadly Wars of the Roses, brother turns on brother to win the ultimate prize, the throne of England.

My Review:

Story: 1 star (DNF)
Narrator: 4 stars

Goodreads bookshelves: books-read-in-2013, audiobook, historical-fiction
Read from May 20 to June 06, 2013

I could not bring myself to finish listening to this book—and that’s the first time that has happened to me with one of Philippa Gregory’s books.

Philippa Gregory didn’t do her usual good job of making me care about the characters in this story. I figured it would be easier for me to grow to care for characters I didn’t know anything about (unlike in the Boleyn books)—I had no preconceived ideas or feelings about them one way or another. However, there’s no depth given to any of the characters in this story to make me care what happens to them beyond the basic historical knowledge I have of what did happen in reality. Perhaps the first-person narrator doesn’t work as well in a book like this which tries to cover 20 or so years of history, especially given that most of that history is about the war in which the first-person narrator is not personally involved. But even when the scene does switch over to Edward and the battlefield, there’s no emotion in it. It’s all just dry prose telling what’s happening and a strange emotional detachment from all of the characters.

Compared to the other books of Gregory’s that I’ve read (also on audio, The Boleyn Inheritance—a favorite—and The Other Boleyn Girl), it seems like she sacrificed a lot in the way of character development for inclusion of historical events. And, for me, that didn’t compel me to keep reading/listening.

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I recently added the Starz premium channels to my cable subscription. (No, it’s not to watch Black Sails. Really, it’s not.) And one of the things that gave me access to was the programming they have available through On Demand. And the entire (first season???) ten episodes of The White Queen were available for bingeing watching.

The reason I subscribed to Starz? Because I watched the first episode for free—and unlike the book, it sucked me right in.

Maybe it was because I had read about 2/3 of this first novel in the book series (the miniseries is based on The White Queen, The Red Queen, and The Kingmaker’s Daughter) and so I was somewhat familiar with the characters and where the story was going, for the most part.

This could be considered a prequel to The Tudors—and, as it was produced by and aired on Starz, it fills that role quite well. (Were the nudity and nearly pornographic sex really necessary to this story? No. At one point, I actually said aloud, “Oh, yes, we haven’t seen a woman’s bare breasts in this episode yet. That’s why she [the queen] is lying there in bed with the sheet neatly tucked under one boob.” Except I might have used a less eloquent word for breasts/boobs.)

The story covers the latter years of the War of the Roses—the battle for the crown of England between the Lancasters and the Yorks. It begins with Elizabeth Woodville and Edward York’s first meeting under an oak tree as he’s riding off to war with the Lancastrians. It’s been speculated throughout history that theirs was, indeed, a love match. He was nineteen; she was five or six years older, and a widow with two sons to boot. She went out to the road to meet him, even though her family were Lancastrians and her father and brothers had fought for that side, because it was apparent the Yorks would win and Edward would be king, to beg Edward to restore her dead husband’s title/lands for her sons to inherit (oh, and Lady Jane Grey, the Nine Days’ Queen, was her great-great granddaughter from one of these sons).

According to this version of events, Edward instantly fell in love (or lust) with Elizabeth. In a matter of days after meeting, he convinced her to marry him secretly (with her mother, his priest, and one other witness only). When her older brother Anthony discovered this, he assumed Edward was repeating a pattern—tricking a woman into thinking they were married so he could sleep with her. However, Edward did keep Elizabeth as his wife. Could be because it was true love, could be (as this fictionalized version posits) partly as a way to declare his independence from his uncle Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (also known as “the Kingmaker” for his role in helping Edward/the Yorks overthrow Henry VI and take the throne). Elizabeth, a commoner, wasn’t popular; and the marriage created a lot of issues for Edward in his early reign—not the least of which were the rumors/accusations of witchcraft toward both Elizabeth and her mother. This part, of course, is played up quite prominently in the novel/miniseries.

As I was watching the series, I kept comparing it to other fictional portrayals of political intrigues, stories involving the toppling of monarchs/leaders, etc., and realized that if these events hadn’t actually happened, an author who came up with this would probably have been laughed out of a pitch session for proposing something so far-fetched. Yet it happened—it’s verifiable history. Though, there are still some mysteries—like what happened to the Princes in the Tower (Elizabeth and Edward’s two young sons) after Edward’s death and his brother Richard usurped Prince Edward’s throne before the boy could be crowned King Edward V? How did Isabel Neville, wife of Edward IV’s turncoat brother, George, really die? And could it be possible that Elizabeth Woodville and her daughter Elizabeth of York really did curse the entire Tudor line so that it died out with no surviving male issue?

So . . . I guess you can say that I enjoyed the TV series MUCH more than the book. Maybe, because I now have watched this, I might be able to go back and try re-reading the book and see if I would enjoy it more.

With the renewed interest/hype in this book due to the announcement/production of the TV miniseries based on it (which was announced a couple of months after I wrote this review last year), I thought this would be an opportune time to post this review.

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
Audiobook narrated by Davina Porter

Book Blurb:
The year is 1945. Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon–when she walks through a standing stone 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 Highland clans in the year of Our Lord…1743.

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into intrigues and dangers that may threaten her life…and shatter her heart. For here she meets James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, and becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire…and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

My Review:

Story: 1 star (DNF)
Narrator: 4 stars

Goodreads bookshelves: audiobook, books-read-in-2013, historical-fiction, fantasy
Read from March 17 to 27, 2013

Audiobook read by Davina Porter (excellent reader).

I put over eight hours of listening into this book (and had more than 25 hours remaining) before I gave up on it. My first problem is the whole extra-marital affair/bigamous marriage aspect. Then . . . I really just didn’t care about Claire, and because it’s 1st person, I didn’t care about anyone else. Jamie has almost no personality whatsoever. And what is the obsession with beatings equating marital and paternal love?

Claire, as a character, is not only unlikable–she’s downright unbelievable. She has almost no reaction to the time travel, and it takes her no time at all to adjust to living 200 years in the past. There’s no worry, no anxiety, over what happened to her and what it means, not just for her but FOR HER HUSBAND.

Which brings me to the biggest problem I had with this book—the husband factor. So much (too much) time is devoted in the beginning of the book to the focus on Claire’s life in the 20th century, so much so that the ONLY character I had any sympathy for in this book is Claire’s long-suffering husband, Frank. Even when she engages him in conversation, it’s patronizing at best. She doesn’t pay attention to him and basically paints him as a windbag with nothing of interest to do or say. Then, once Claire goes back in time, I got the impression that I was supposed to equate Frank with his historical counterpart, Captain Jack Randall, who is the villain of the piece, because he’s not only her husband’s ancestor, he also looks like Frank. So, now, this guy she’s legally married to in the 1940s, who has never been anything but nice and loving toward her, is supposed to suddenly be thought of as the bad guy? No thank you!

I’ve read a whole lot of reviews of this book since setting it aside, thinking that maybe I was just in a bad headspace when I tried reading/listening to it and I should give it a second chance. But, frankly, nothing I’ve read since I put this book down (actually, it’s the only audiobook I’ve ever “returned” for a refund). Some reviewers excuse Claire’s lack of shock/adjustment to the time travel because she was a battlefield nurse in WWII. No. I’m sorry, I don’t care how much trauma she saw in the war, she’s still going to have trouble adjusting to living in 18th century Scotland (which, from Gabaldon’s descriptions, sounds like it was closer to 16th or 17th century living conditions).

There isn’t a reviewer in the world who can convince me that the “romance” between Jamie and Claire isn’t wrong. Claire is married. Her husband is still alive, even if they aren’t in the same “place.” I don’t care if her husband is 200 years in the future. She’s married. End of story. But why did she need to be married? Had Claire merely been engaged to Frank or been on the trip to Scotland with a relative, Gabaldon could have still accomplished the feat of getting her where she needed to be in order to do the time travel. So, again, I ask—what’s the point of having her married in 1945 only to go back in time to be forced to marry someone else?

In addition to Claire’s easy transition to the 1700s, it’s also unbelievable to me how easily she’s accepted into the clan community. Maybe it’s because I was weaned on the Highland romances penned by the likes of Julie Garwood and Jude Deveraux in the 1980s and early 1990s, but my understanding is that Scottish clans were very insular and didn’t welcome outsiders at all—especially those from south of the border. No, granted, her acceptance wasn’t unconditional, but it was a lot wider and a lot easier than it should have been.

I know there are people who will defend this book to the death as one of the greatest romance novels ever written. And that’s your right and prerogative. But let’s clear up that misnomer—even though this book is labeled as romance, it really isn’t, at least, not once you get past the first (too-long) volume. This falls more into line with epic historical fantasy/fiction. Yes, there’s a strong element of what some would call romance (bigamous marriage, sex, beatings, sex, etc.), but the focus of the story isn’t necessarily the developing relationship of the two main characters culminating in a happily-ever-after ending, which is what defines the romance genre.

Will I watch the series once it hits Netflix streaming? I’ll at least give the first episode a go. I might like the characters better as brought to life on screen instead of how they come across in the book (remember, in the book, we’re stuck inside of Claire’s head and can never get anyone else’s thoughts or perspectives). But it will still be a hard sell for me, since my biggest problem with the book is a fundamental of the storyline.

Have you read Outlander? What did you think of it? Do you plan to watch the miniseries?