The idea of It's Monday! What Are You Reading is to share the books you read last week and also what you are currently reading. I've discovered the hard way that it's a dangerous meme for your TBR piles as frequently I end up adding books to my wishlist thanks to the intriguing descriptions and reviews that others share.
Last week I finally finished Diana Gabaldon's The Drums of Autumn!
Drums of AutumnDiana Gabaldon
Dell Books
Copyright: 1997
978-0440224259
The amazon.com product description:
It began in Scotland, at an ancient stone circle. There, a doorway, open to a select few, leads into the past--or the grave. Claire Randall survived the extraordinary passage, not once buy twice. Her first trip swept her into the arms of Jamie Fraser, an eighteenth-century Scot whose love for her became legend--a tale of tragic passion that ended with her return to the present to bear his child. Her second journey, two decades later, brought them together again in frontier America. But Claire had left someone behind in the twentieth century. Their daughter Brianna...A snippet from my review:
Now, Brianna has made a disturbing discovery that sends her to the stone circle and a terrifying leap into the unknown. In search of her mother and the father she has never met, she is risking her own future to try to change history...and to save their lives. But as Brianna plunges into an uncharted wilderness, a heartbreaking encounter may strand her forever in the past...or root her in the place she should be, where her heart and soul belong...
Diana Gabaldon's books are definitely oriented to the senses - and not always in a pleasant way. The characters and settings are anchored through all five senses, as I've noted in previous posts - for example my essay on food and drink. However, I was particularly noticing the use of the sense of smell in Drums of Autumn. Smells of food, woodsmoke, different times of day and weather, all were described.
I'm on to reading The Fiery Cross now, the next book in the series.The amazon.com product description:
The dazzling fifth volume of Diana Gabaldon’s extraordinary Outlander saga, featuring 18th-century Scotsman James Fraser and his 20th-century time-traveling wife, Claire Randall.I'm currently only a hundred or so pages in so far, but enjoying the read a lot. As I noted with Drums of Autumn, its an interesting experience as I am rereading the book, but my original read was so long ago that while I remember a few scattered scenes, so far it's almost like reading the book for the first time, without really knowing the story ahead.
The year is 1771, and war is coming. Jamie Fraser’s wife tells him so. Little as he wishes to, he must believe it, for hers is a gift of dreadful prophecy—a time-traveler’s certain knowledge.
Born in the year of Our Lord 1918, Claire Randall served England as a nurse on the battlefields of World War II, and in the aftermath of peace found fresh conflicts when she walked through a cleftstone on the Scottish Highlands and found herself an outlander, an English lady in a place where no lady should be, in a time—1743—when the only English in Scotland were the officers and men of King George’s army.
Now wife, mother, and surgeon, Claire is still an outlander, out of place, and out of time, but now, by choice, linked by love to her only anchor—Jamie Fraser. Her unique view of the future has brought him both danger and deliverance in the past; her knowledge of the oncoming revolution is a flickering torch that may light his way through the perilous years ahead—or ignite a conflagration that will leave their lives in ashes....
Grand, sweeping, utterly unforgettable, The Fiery Cross is riveting entertainment, a vibrant tapestry of history and human drama.
I did read and review this book a few years ago, back in 2009.
I think that The Fiery Cross is going to be taking up most of my reading time for the next few weeks, so I don't have any books on my "plan to read" list for now. If I end up picking something up, that will be a bonus.
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