Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series started by accident when she decided to sit down and writer a novel “for practice” in the late 1980s, and to learn what is required to write a good book and whether she had the capacity to become a writer. Published in 1991 as Cross Stitch in the UK and Outlander in North America, that first “practice” novel went on to spawn an entire set of novels – and a television series as well
Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just 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 circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743.
Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.
Caledonia Skytower reads selections from Outlander, which will also be the subject of a Book Discussion at Community Virtual Library central, at 5:30 slt on Wednesday, September 28th.
