A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows

A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows by Diana Gabaldon
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Such a bittersweet story! This novella tells what really happened to Roger MacKenzie's parents, specifically his father, during WWII. It's beautiful and heartbreaking all at once to know...and yet to realize that Roger will never fully know the truth.

For readers' advisors: story and setting doorways, primarily. A little sexual content and bad language.

View all my reviews

Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner

Lord John and the Scottish Prisoner by Diana Gabaldon

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Oh, my goodness, I now need to listen to all of the Outlander series on audiobook! Or at least I do if they are all read by voice actors as wonderful as Jeff Woodman & Rick Holmes. I thought I'd died and gone to heaven when this book started playing, and I was so grateful that it was 13 CDs long. Bliss!

The Grey brothers have extensive evidence of corruption by an army officer and set out to track him down and bring him to justice. Among the papers in the packet of evidence is a poem they believe to be written in "Erse" (the language of the Scottish Highlanders), so John's brother Harold sends soldiers to fetch Jamie from Hellwater and bring him to London to translate what turns out to be an Irish poem. To Jamie's dismay, a former comrade and die-hard Irish Jacobite, Tobias Quinn, has followed him there. Next thing Jamie knows, he's on a boat to Ireland with both Lord John & Quinn, battling brutal seasickness and trying to convince his unwelcome Irish companion that the Jacobite cause is dead and should be put to rest.

This novel is sort of a bridge between Gabaldon's Outlander series and her Lord John series. It features both Jamie Fraser and Lord John Grey and takes place during 1760 when Jamie is "on parole" at Hellwater--after Ardsmuir Prison but before being free & Claire coming back. The chapters switch back and forth between Jamie's & John's points of view, and the voice actors likewise switch back and forth, doing the voices for all the people in their respective chapters.

I've seen a thread on Goodreads of people complaining about the narrators--Rick Holmes, in particular--and I do not understand why they are so displeased. True, I am not Scottish and have never (yet) been to Scotland and cannot therefore say for sure how accurate Holmes' Scottish accent is, but sheesh! His voice is wonderful and brought Jamie to life in a whole new way for me!

For readers' advisors: Like Gabaldon's other Outlander books, this one is pretty long and involves intertwining subplots and political intrigue. There is some relatively graphic sexual content, but no real sex scenes (it's all memory, fantasy, and dreams). There is quite a lot of swearing but all of it makes contextual sense. Character and setting doorways are primary; story is secondary.



View all my reviews

An Echo in the Bone

An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


814 pages, and still everything is left hanging by the end?! Ack! Diana Gabaldon had better be working furiously to finish the next book asap, that's all I can say. There are too many cliffhangers to count in this one.

Volume seven in the Outlander series takes place during the Revolutionary War (Jamie & Claire's time) and 1980 (Brianna & Roger's time). Gabaldon skips around between storylines and narrators quite frequently, which keeps things interesting and also can be frustrating. There is a LOT going on in this episode. I read very quickly, and even I couldn't read fast enough to satisfy my urgent need to find out what the heck happened!

I really wished I had a computer by my side (or an Apple iPad/Touch/Phone) while reading this book because I kept wanting to look up names, battles, places, and timelines to remind myself of historical details I'd forgotten. The book really brings the Revolutionary War to life.

For readers' advisors: story, character, and setting are all strong doorways, but the length and occasional sexual content might scare off some readers.



View all my reviews

The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel

The Exile: An Outlander Graphic Novel by Diana Gabaldon

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


I should preface my review by saying that graphic novels are not really my thing. I love reading comics in the paper and all, but this is only the second graphic novel I have ever completed reading. It's not going to make me a GN convert, let's put it that way.

I had a hard time following along in the GN version of Outlander as told from Jamie's (and Murtagh's, among others) point of view. The artwork was lovely, but I could NOT keep the men's faces straight. They all looked nearly identical to me, and I had to rely on the skimpy dialogue to follow the story. Thank God I'd already read the real novels!

While I'm on the subject of the artwork, what is up with the artist's inability to keep Claire clothed?! I know Claire had a very curvy figure and all, but seriously, no matter what the outfit or context, she always had to be falling out of her flimsy bodices?! WAY too much cleavage to be believable. Capt. Randall's assumption that Claire was a prostitute became utterly logical and rational. She's drawn to look like a blowsy barmaid, for crying out loud!

I'm not certain who the target audience is for this GN version. Perhaps Diana Gabaldon wants to whet GN fans' appetites and get them to read the original series? The nature of this format is such that at least 85% of the story is missing, along with 98% of the character development and back story. It's like reading an abstract for a doctoral thesis. *sigh* In this case a picture really is NOT worth 1000 words. Ah well, I tried. And I stuck it out for the whole thing, just to be sure.

For readers' advisory: story doorway...or people with short attention spans?



View all my reviews