June 01, 2004
19. Outlander, Diana Gabaldon
After about fifty pages or so, this book was added to the "Holy shit, why didn't I read this years ago?!" list. For the rest of the weekend, every spare moment I could find (and a not a few I stole from other planned activities, like packing) was spent reading this book. I finished it last night at about 11:30. Wow. I admit, when I bought it on Saturday, I was a little disgruntled to have bought a book shelved in the romance section. I discovered that there's romance novels, and then there's romance novels. Outlander is one of the latter. The writing's good, the story is taut, and while yeah, a big part of the plot has to do with the main character's romantic relationship with the hero, there's a lot more going on.
I was a little startled to realize, in fact, that this is the sort of book I want to write, that I've tried to write, in fact. I don't just mean Sword in the Mound, but in fact, The Exile's Daughter could well end up classified as a 'romance', should I ever manage to rewrite it and get it published. Scary, that.
Posted by Lisa at June 1, 2004 01:35 PM | 2004