Book Review: Shadow of Night

Shadow of Night (All Souls Trilogy #2)
Deborah Harkness

Release Date: July 10, 2012

Book Description:
IT BEGAN WITH A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES.

Historian Diana Bishop, descended from a line of powerful witches, and long-lived vampire Matthew Clairmont have broken the laws dividing creatures. When Diana discovered a significant alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian Library,she sparked a struggle in which she became bound to Matthew. Now the fragile coexistence of witches, daemons, vampires and humans is dangerously threatened.

Seeking safety, Diana and Matthew travel back in time to London, 1590. But they soon realise that the past may not provide a haven. Reclaiming his former identity as poet and spy for Queen Elizabeth, the vampire falls back in with a group of radicals known as the School of Night. Many are unruly daemons, the creative minds of the age, including playwright Christopher Marlowe and mathematician Thomas Harriot.

Together Matthew and Diana scour Tudor London for the elusive manuscript Ashmole 782, and search for the witch who will teach Diana how to control her remarkable powers...

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Review:
Second in Deborah Harkness’s bestselling All Souls Trilogy, Shadow of Night is a breathtakingly beautiful and historically rich tale of love and marriage, trust and family, magic and mystery, and a long lost manuscript known as Ashmole 782. Picking up where A Discovery of Witches left off, Shadow of Night plunges its readers into the intricate and colorful world of 16th century Elizabethan England, where Diana and Matthew find themselves among Matthew’s friends, a famed group of poets and scientist known as the School of Night. Still, journeying into the past to find a manuscript and a witch to educate Diana quickly proves to be a much more cumbersome and time-consuming task than Matthew would expect. And soon the whirlwind of intrigues and conspiracies, not to mention Matthew’s countless identities and many masters, threaten to envelope them all together.

Book Review: A Breath of Snow and Ashes

A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander #6)
Diana Gabaldon

Release Date: September 27, 2005

Book Description:
A Breath of Snow and Ashes continues the extraordinary story of 18th-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his 20th-century wife, Claire.

The year is 1772, and on the eve of the American Revolution, the long fuse of rebellion has already been lit. Men lie dead in the streets of Boston, and in the backwoods of North Carolina, isolated cabins burn in the forest.

With chaos brewing, the governor calls upon Jamie Fraser to unite the backcountry and safeguard the colony for King and Crown. But from his wife Jamie knows that three years hence the shot heard round the world will be fired, and the result will be independence — with those loyal to the King either dead or in exile. And there is also the matter of a tiny clipping from The Wilmington Gazette, dated 1776, which reports Jamie’s death, along with his kin. For once, he hopes, his time-traveling family may be wrong about the future.

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Review:
I’m amazed at the amount of work and detail that must go into writing of these novels and I have no doubt that Diana Gabaldon is a gifted writer with and incredible ability for storytelling. But it is also her downfall. Personally, I’m starting to find these novels a bit tiring – the sheer amount of detail and events seem to overshadow the main arc of the story, if there is even one at this point. However, the reason I can’t give up these books completely is my fascination with the main characters of these novels – Claire and Jamie, both of whom are charismatic, idealistic, imperfect, selfish yet selfless, and endearing even when they infuriate me with their action. It isn’t an ideal world and these aren’t ideal novels but there is still enough spark to keep me reading, craving, and wanting more…

Book Review: The Fiery Cross

The Fiery Cross (Outlander #5)
Diana Gabaldon

Release Date: November 6, 2001

Book Description:
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. Claire’s 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.

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Review:
Mild spoilers ahead

It seems it’s been forever and yet, here I am, having finished another of the Outlander novels. I’m almost feeling proud of myself for having accomplished this, as this novel had me wondering if I was ready to give up the series all together. Alas, I’ve already purchased the two follow-up novels and that would be a real waste in my opinion, so on and on I went, as did Ms. Gabaldon…

Book Review: Drums of Autumn

Drums of Autumn (Outlander #4)
Diana Gabaldon

Release Date: December 30, 1996

Book Description:
In this breathtaking novel—rich in history and adventure—The New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon continues the story of Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser that began with the now-classic novel Outlander and continued in Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager. Once again spanning continents and centuries, Diana Gabaldon has created a work of sheer passion and brilliance....

It began at an ancient Scottish stone circle. There, a doorway, open to a select few, leads into the past—or the grave. Dr. Claire Randall survived the extraordinary passage, not once but twice.

Her first trip swept her into the arms of Jamie Fraser, an eighteenth-century Scot whose love for her became a 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 the American colonies. But Claire had left someone behind in the twentieth century—their daughter, Brianna....

Now Brianna has made a disturbing discovery that sends her to the circle of stones 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....

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Review:
As another installment in the Outlander saga draws to a close I feel a sense of accomplishment. I’ve lived along with these characters for so long now, that I am almost sad to see another book end. At over a thousand pages [or 40 plus listening hours in my case], I can certainly see why so many readers [myself included] have been captivated by these stories. Ms. Gabaldon is unquestionably a gifted storyteller, but like any franchise certain things continue to work well, while others become repetitive or even annoying. Still, my love remains with these characters.

Book Review: Voyager

Voyager (Outlander #3)
Diana Gabaldon

Release Date: December 1, 1993

Book Review:
From the author of the breathtaking bestsellers Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber, the extraordinary saga continues.

Their passionate encounter happened long ago by whatever measurement Claire Randall took. Two decades before, she had traveled back in time and into the arms of a gallant eighteenth-century Scot named Jamie Fraser. Then she returned to her own century to bear his child, believing him dead in the tragic battle of Culloden. Yet his memory has never lessened its hold on her... and her body still cries out for him in her dreams.

Then Claire discovers that Jamie survived. Torn between returning to him and staying with their daughter in her own era, Claire must choose her destiny. And as time and space come full circle, she must find the courage to face the passion and pain awaiting her...the deadly intrigues raging in a divided Scotland... and the daring voyage into the dark unknown that can reunite or forever doom her timeless love.

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Review:
Finally finished, and what a book it is!

Only a third installment in the Outlander series, but I feel it must have been at least ten books since I first started the series. I think Ms. Gabaldon certainly doesn’t take her writing lightly – if anything, her books are full of little details from everyday life occurrences to unexpected plot twists and more.

Book Review: Overseas

Overseas
Beatriz Williams

Release Date: May 10, 2012

Book Description:
A passionate, sweeping novel of a love that transcends time.

When twenty-something Wall Street analyst Kate Wilson attracts the notice of the legendary Julian Laurence at a business meeting, no one’s more surprised than she is. Julian’s relentless energy and his extraordinary intellect electrify her, but she’s baffled by his sudden interest. Why would this handsome British billionaire—Manhattan’s most eligible bachelor—pursue a pretty but bookish young banker who hasn’t had a boyfriend since college?

The answer is beyond imagining . . . at least at first. Kate and Julian’s story may have begun not in the moneyed world of twenty-first-century Manhattan but in France during World War I, when a mysterious American woman emerged from the shadows of the Western Front to save the life of Captain Julian Laurence Ashford, a celebrated war poet and infantry officer.

Now, in modern-day New York, Kate and Julian must protect themselves from the secrets of the past, and trust in a true love that transcends time and space.

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Review:
As I finished the last few pages of Overseas, a novel by Beatriz Williams, I hurried to reflect on my reading of it. I had many emotions and thoughts running through my head while reading it, but as soon as I faced the blank sheet – I was suddenly at a loss for words. What does one say about this novel? Sweet, romantic, cheesy? Perhaps, all of the above?

Book Review: Dragonfly in Amber

Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander #2)

Diana Gabaldon

Release Date: January 1, 1992

Book Description:

With her now-classic novel Outlander, Diana Gabaldon introduced two unforgettable characters — Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser—delighting readers with a story of adventure and love that spanned two centuries. Now Gabaldon returns to that extraordinary time and place in this vivid, powerful follow-up to Outlander....

For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland’s majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones ... about a love that transcends the boundaries of time ... and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his....

Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire’s spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart ... in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising ... and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves....

Audible Audio Edition:

Narrator Davina Porter's gift for expression captures the history and flavor of a harsh place and time, and gives it the polish of a warm and engaging love story.

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Review:

Another stellar installment in the Outlander franchise! Diana Gabaldon once again transports us to the world of 18th century Scotland where Claire and Jamie are set to thwart the second Jacobite Rising, if only history can be rewritten…

Book Review: Outlander

Outlander (Outlander #1)
Diana Gabaldon

Release Date: June 1, 1991

Book Description:
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.

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Review:
What a story!

I just finished this novel a few days ago and am surprised at how much I enjoyed it. I’ve been hesitant to pick it up even though many have recommended it to me and it has great reviews and a devout following (from what I hear). It’s been on my TBR list for awhile and I admit I have avoided reading this for quite some time, but I am very glad that I gave it a chance.