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THE PIZZA BIBLE by Tony Gemignani

January 6, 2015

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The World’s Favorite Pizza Styles, from Neapolitan, Deep-Dish, Wood-Fired, Sicilian, Calzones and Focaccia to New York, New Haven, Detroit, and more, with Susie Heller & Steve Siegelman, photography by Sara Remington

I am Italian by marriage, and over the years we have gotten pretty serious about pizza, serious enough that my husband built a wood burning pizza oven in the back yard (see picture below.)

The first time I had homemade pizza was at my mother-in-law’s house on Long Island. Growing up in New York, I ate a lot of pizza from pizzerias. It never even occurred to me that this was something you could make at home. Sure, we had English Muffin pizza and maybe some frozen French bread pizza, but real pizza? That we went out for or had delivered.

My mother-in-law made pizza that is now called “Grandma Pizza.” Baked in the oven in a half sheet pan, similar to Sicilian pizza except the crust isn’t prebaked and most unusual, at least for me, the mozzarella went on the bottom and the sauce went on top. It was awe inspiring and delicious. She was kind enough to share that recipe and many others – in fact, my husband taught me to cook using his mother’s recipes.

Backyard pizza oven all fired up

Fast forward many years, and pizza started going what some call gourmet, but really was back to its roots in Naples. The ubiquitous pizza chains are as popular as ever, but so are the Napoletana style pizzerias and lots of mom and pop shops. There are shows on the Food Network and other channels, pizza forums like Forno Bravo, pizza blogs like Worst Pizza here in south Florida.

That said, over the years we have tried lots of different recipes from a variety of sources and cookbooks. So when I heard about this Pizza Bible, I was intrigued, and when I got my hands on the book (thanks, Ten Speed Press!) I knew I found pizza nirvana.

For the beginner to the Professional Pizzaiolo, this book works for everyone. Every conceivable type of pizza is included, as the subtitle informs (I won’t be trying Chicago style pizza, which I consider to be more of a casserole than a pizza) with lots of gorgeous pictures and clear explanations and directions. Nothing is assumed, and this book is geared towards the home kitchen. There is a complete index and a list of online sources to find some of the more esoteric ingredients and equipment, but more commonly found alternatives are usually given.

We decided to try the Napoletana Dough and Sauce. There are instructions for making your own mozzarella cheese, but fresh cheese is very easy to find in my area so I didn’t feel the need to go that far. The dough was a three day affair; in fact, when I first got the book I wanted to try it right away but then realized it would take a bit of planning. All I can say is that it was worth it. It’s not difficult or even time consuming, it’s just that you need to make a poolish (starter) which needs 18 hours to grow, then make the dough, a quick affair using a stand mixer, and that needs refrigeration for 36 hours or more – thus, the planning. The dough was easy to manipulate, and that alone is worth the planning. If you’ve ever worked with store bought pizza dough or frankly, most recipes, the dough can be a bear, wanting to spring back to its original shape or tearing as it is stretched.

On the other hand, the Napoletana Sauce was super easy, basically made from San Marzano canned tomatoes pushed through a food mill and salted. For the first pizza I used the minimal amount of sauce suggested, but preferred a bit more than called for, an easy fix.

If you are using a wood fired oven, or wonder how that works, there are pictures and step by step instructions on building the fire and preparing the oven floor, along with directions on turning the pizza and so forth. This is excellent for the beginner or the curious.

Making pizza is not the easiest thing in the world, but it is worth it. The Napoletana Dough was perfect – the crust was crispy around the edges, chewy through the middle. You could pick up a slice and it held its shape without drooping and dropping sauce or cheese. It baked perfectly in a smidge over two minutes. I think we ate it about that fast, too!

I also made a calzone with ricotta, mozzarella and Romano cheese. Again, the dough was easy to work with. I didn’t overfill it, per instructions, and sealed it much like an empanada. It still popped open in one spot and lost a bit of filling, but it was delicious and pretty, too.

I like that he includes recipes like Two Cool Things to do with Leftover Dough – most useful, and an interesting meatball recipe. He explains why pepperoni is an American invention and how it differs from sausages made in Italy.

I’ll still keep using my mother-in-law’s pizza recipe when the oven in my kitchen is a better option – there’s something quite hellish about standing in front of a 900+ degree oven during a south Florida summer when it is a not-so-breezy 90+ degrees and 100% humidity outside. But I will be trying more recipes from this book. I have to try the Burratina di Margherita, which won the Gold Cup in the Pan Division of the International Tournament of Champions in Lecce, Italy – plus it’s made with burrata, which is the most heavenly cheese on earth. Here’s Tony’s description from page 129:

Burrata is mozzarella that’s formed into a pouch, filled with more mozzarella and cream, and then wrapped in leaves. As it sits, it comes together as a fresh, moist “super mozzarella” that’s insanely rich. In Lecce, they make huge burrata balls, and they treat them like sacred works of art.

In South Florida, I can get slightly smaller than tennis ball size burrata at Whole Foods or Trader Joes and it is a treat.

I’m also excited about the Prosciutto and Arugula Pizza, the Margherita Extra, made with wood oven charred cherry tomatoes instead of sauce, the Insalata AKA salad pizza, one of my faves, and so many more. This is an excellent cookbook, well laid out, easy to use, with recipes that work. Gift this to the pizza lover in your life and hope they invite you over!

1/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

THE PIZZA BIBLE by Tony Gemignani. Ten Speed Press (October 28, 2014). ISBN: 978-1607746058. 320p.

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Posted by Stacy Alesi

GAME by Barry Lyga

January 5, 2015

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The Sequel to I Hunt Killers

Things haven’t gotten any easier for Jazz Dent in the wake of his participation in the hunt for the Impressionist. While that killer is safely behind bars, Billy Dent has managed to escape and Jazz is almost certain he holds some responsibility.

But Jazz doesn’t have time to worry about Billy at this point. A new killer is on the move in New York City and the police there have approached Jazz for help. It seems his work in solving Lobo’s Nod’s recent case has gained some attention and has finally made the authorities admit that Jazz’s particular upbringing could be useful in hunting down serial killers.

This second in the Jasper Dent series is an excellent follow up to I Hunt Killers. It picks up just months after the end of its predecessor, immediately addressing all of the questions that one left in its wake. Of course by the end there’s a whole slew of new questions. (And it’s a cliffhanger of an ending if ever there was one.)

This time around Jazz is even more concerned about his potential in following in his dad’s footsteps – in spite of all of his efforts – and that’s thanks mostly to the fact that Billy is once again out on the streets. Jazz is plagued by his father’s voice both figuratively and ultimately literally.

This second installment also brings Jazz’s friends, Howie and Connie, even further into the mix. Howie is stuck in Lobo’s Nod helping with Jazz’s crazy grandmother and meeting his friend’s long lost aunt for the first time. Connie, on the other hand, tries to follow Jazz to NYC and lands in hot water with her parents. Their involvement with Jazz not only leads to their discovering some big news about their friend but also places them both in potentially big danger.

1/15 Becky LeJeune

GAME by Barry Lyga. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (June 17, 2014). ISBN: 978-0316125857. 544p.

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I HUNT KILLERS by Barry Lyga

January 4, 2015

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Jasper “Jazz” Dent wants nothing more than to be an ordinary teen. But that’s kind of impossible when you’re the son of William Cornelius Dent, probably THE most notorious serial killer. From the very start, Billy raised Jazz to think and plan like a killer.

Fortunately for Jazz, Billy was finally caught and has since been serving so many consecutive life sentences that he’ll never see the light of day.

But that doesn’t mean Jazz is free of him. The teen spends much of his time terrified that he might actually be just like his father. So when a killer strikes in Jazz’s tiny hometown of Lobo’s Nod, he makes it his mission to help solve the crime by putting his particular skills and knowledge to work.

Barry Lyga’s Jasper Dent series is like a teen mashup of Dexter and Criminal Minds. Of course unlike Dexter, Jazz isn’t actually a sociopath. At least he hopes not.

It might seem strange to have a teen detective with so much direct access to the police and the crime scene (which is the case with this series) but I think Lyga does a great job setting the story up in a way that is almost believable. Anything that stretches the imagination too far is forgivable in my opinion because I Hunt Killers is just that much of a fun read.

I Hunt Killers should most definitely come with a warning. Anyone who thinks a book about serial killers might be less dark or graphic simply because it’s meant for a teen audience would be very mistaken in this case; I Hunt Killers is quite dark indeed.

1/15 Becky LeJeune

I HUNT KILLERS by Barry Lyga. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; Reprint edition (April 2, 2013). ISBN: 978-0316125833. 384p.

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GRAY MOUNTAIN by John Grisham

January 2, 2015

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I used to love John Grisham. The Firm, A Time to Kill, The Pelican Brief were all favorites. I also loved the non-legal books like Playing for Pizza, Calico Joe and A Painted House. But somewhere along the way, I lost patience with the legal thrillers, especially when the main characters, generally well educated lawyers, started doing incredibly stupid stuff. I stopped reading them, tried again with The Litigators because my library patrons raved about it, but again found the main character too stupid to live. I gave up. Then came Gray Mountain.

I heard it may be the first book of a series, and I liked the environmental angle so I picked it up and read it in a day (okay, I was on vacation.) I loved it. Welcome back to my reading circle, Mr. Grisham.

The story revolves around Samantha Kofer, a Columbia Law School grad with a great six-figure job for one of the behemoth law firms on Wall Street. And then there was Lehman Brothers and the financial crisis and all those big law firms started cutting and cutting. Samantha got a good deal – she could take a one year furlough, do some good work pro bono, keep her medical benefits and maybe, just maybe, after the year is up she might get her job back.

The pro bono jobs were going fast; Samantha received nine rejection letters in her first day of applying. Until she heard from the Mountain Legal Aid Clinic in Brady, Virginia, a small town in the Appalachia’s. And so she moved to Virginia, at least temporarily, to work at the all girl clinic.

For the first time, Samantha likes her work and feels useful. She actually gets to help people and they appreciate her help. Until her first black lung case – a huge problem with all the mining in Appalachia. When she finds evidence that the coal company and their lawyers hid evidence, people start dying.

I learned a lot about coal mining today and what the miners go through, none of it good. I really liked these characters and the setting, and the stupidity was left to minor characters, a much welcome change. I would love to read more about Samantha and her life in Brady and hope the rumors about a series come to pass.

1/15 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

GRAY MOUNTAIN by John Grisham. Doubleday; First Edition edition (October 21, 2014). ISBN 978-0385537148. 384p.

2 Comments | Book Reviews, Crime Fiction, Fiction | Tagged: Legal | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

Win the January ’15 bookshelf of signed thrillers!

January 1, 2015

Happy New Year, dear readers! I updated the Win Books page with some fantastic books. As always, there are NY Times bestsellers, favorite series, and a debut.

First up is Cane and Abe, a spellbinding novel of suspense from New York Times bestselling author (and one of my favorites!) James Grippando, in which Miami’s top prosecutor becomes a prime suspect in his wife’s disappearance, which may have a chilling connection to the woman he can’t forget.

Thomas Perry’s Jane Whitefield is back in A String of Beads, an addictive, fast-paced thriller about how abandoning the past can sometimes be the hardest thing to do, even when your life—and the life of those you love—depends on it.

Bill Loehfelm is a rising star in crime fiction and Doing the Devil’s Work only ups the ante. Maureen Coughlin is the perfect protagonist: complicated, strong-willed, sympathetic (except when she’s not), and as fully realized in Loehfelm’s extraordinary portrayal as the New Orleans she patrols.

On every police force in the country, there’s a SWAT sniper going about his daily life. Grant Jerkins and Jan Thomas’s Done in One pulls back the curtain on their world. Suspenseful, lightning–quick, and endlessly entertaining, Viking Bay is the pitch-perfect new adventure in the Kay Hamilton series from M.K. Lawson, who also writes the terrific Joe DeMarco series as Mike Lawson.

Patricia Gussin’s latest is After the Fall. In a starred review, Booklist said, “Gussin completes her Laura Nelson series with an action-packed medical thriller…Gussin uses her experience as a surgeon and medical researcher to create a complex, realistic story that will appeal to readers with a taste for thrillers centering on science and politics.”

If you love paranormal cozy mysteries, you won’t want to miss Shadow of Doubt, the first book in the Carol Childs Mystery series by Nancy Cole Silverman. In the Alaskan wilderness, love and danger collide in Buried by Elizabeth Goddard.

Jeanne Matthews “makes fine use of Berlin’s turbulent history and the enduring German fascination with Indian culture,” (Publisher’s Weekly) in her latest Dinah Pelerin mystery, Where the Bones are Buried.

Finally, romance and action come crashing together in Susan Adrian’s debut young adult thriller Tunnel Vision, in which a teenage boy with incredible powers is brought to the attention of the government.

You can win autographed copies of all these books! If you are new to the site, each month I run a contest in conjunction with the International Thriller Writers group. We put together a list of books including bestsellers and debut authors, so you can win some of your favorites and find some new favorites.

What makes this contest really special is that all of the books (except eBooks) are signed by the author!

Don’t forget, if you subscribe to the newsletter or follow this blog, you get an extra entry into every contest you enter.

Thanks for reading, and good luck!

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Best Books of 2014: Geoffrey R. Hamlin

December 30, 2014

Geoff’s Ten Favorites for 2014

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I thought that this was pretty good year for both great stories and intellectual challenges, so this was not an easy list to put together.

1. Faithful and Virtuous Night by Louise Gluck: Much to my surprise, the book that moved me the most this year was this slender volume of poetry by Louise Gluck. Calm and reflective, Ms. Gluck’s language is an easy entrée into thoughts about both the deepest and the most transient aspects of life and family.

2. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan: The powerful WWII story of a doctor from Australia who is the commanding officer of a group of Australian prisoners of war. His men are being forced by the Japanese Army to try to build a railroad through the jungle in Burma. It pulls no punches and is not a pretty or romantic story. However, there are many examples of courage and weakness displayed. The doctor, Dorrigo Evans, finds himself forced to be a better man than he had ever dreamed of being in order to set an example for his men. The book looks in depth at why people do great things and why other people engage in acts of what seems to be unspeakable cruelty. It is a powerhouse and was well deserving of the Booker Prize. (By the way, the title comes from a book by Basho, the legendary Japanese poet.)

3. The Burning Room by Michael Connelly: Bosch is back, working on another cold case, a man who finally dies from a bullet fired ten years earlier. It is politically sensitive and becomes even more so when tied to another cold case involving children killed in a fire. Bosch is assigned a new protégé, Lt. Lucia Soto, who turns out to be a survivor of that fire. As the story progresses, Bosch tries to pass along not only what he knows about crime-solving and why murderers must be brought to justice, but also how to avoid the pitfalls of politics and the press. Lt. Soto is an apt student, although every bit as headstrong as Bosch himself. As the twin cases progress, they each gain increasing trust and respect for each other. Hopefully, they will continue to get to work together in the future.

4. The Long Way Home by Louise Penny: Those who know how strongly I feel about Louise Penny’s Inspector Gamache stories will appreciate how powerful I thought the first three books were to place them ahead of her latest. The Long Way Home is interesting for a lot of different reasons.To start with, it is not, at least at first, a murder story. It is the story of the usual gang’s search for the husband of Clara Morrow, the artist extraordinaire. Secondly, it does not take place in the wonderfully familiar and comfortable setting of the Village of Three Pines, but rather travels to the no man’s land at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. But most of all, it is different because you can sense Ms. Penny feeling more confident and liberated as an author, willing to take chances and try new things. It will be fascinating to see where her next book goes. I can’t wait.

5. Redeployment by Phil Klay: Klay’s short stories about life as a soldier in Iraq and afterward are based on his personal experiences there. A review of some of the stories titles will let you know how deep and powerful they are going to be – Frago, After Action Report, Bodies, Money as a Weapons System, In Vietnam They Had Whores, Prayer in the Furnace, Psychological Operations, and Unless It’s a Sucking Chest Wound. The grim humor of men at war comes through in the story OIF, which pretty much consists of the acronyms that bureaucracies love. It starts “EOD handled the bombs. SSTP treated the wounds. PRP processed the bodies. The 08’s fired DPICM. The MAW provided the CAS. The 03’s patrolled the MSR’s. Me and PFC handled the money.”

6. In Paradise by Peter Mattheissen: Mattheissen’s last book is one of his best. It is the story of Clements Olin, a professor of twentieth century Slavic literature, with a special interest in survivor texts. Professor Olin, who is himself of Polish extraction joins a group of about a hundred people, from various countries, for a week-long “healing” at a German death camp. The use of these different peoples, including a spiritual leader, Ben Lama, and a cynic named Dr. Anders Stern, illustrates how hard to it is to understand the holocaust and assign responsibility for that. It is thought-provoking, as well as a good story.

7. Cold Storage by John Straley: Straley is one of our finest regional crime fiction writers. It is interesting to see that his cover blurbs come from the likes of James Sallis, Ken Bruen, Gary Snyder, and Sam Alden (graphic novelist). Cold Storage is the name of a small town in Alaska. Clive McCahon returns there after having served seven years in prison for drug offenses. He rebuilds an old town gathering place which he calls the Love Nest and serves beer and plays music on records during the week and delivers a sermon on Sunday. All of the town characters are in fact characters. When a Tlingit Indian named Lester is asked if everybody in town is a comedian, he responds, “No, actually most of the people in this town are drunks or depressives, but we have our funny moments.”

8. Soul of the Fire by Elliot Pattison: This is the seventh in a series of novels about a Chinese official, Shan Tao Yun, who was exiled to and imprisoned in Tibet for alleged political crimes. He was able to survive his imprisonment by embracing the instruction he received from other prisoners in the Tibetan religious practices and traditional way of life. Now he uses those beliefs and practices to ameliorate the evils being perpetrated by the Chinese rulers of Tibet. What these books are really about is the way in which the Chinese are seeking to extinguish everything that characterized the Tibetans. In addition to being an entertaining and different story, the serious message of these books is an important reminder that awful things are still being done in many parts of the world.

9. The Laws of Murder by Charles Finch: The latest in Finch’s Charles Lenox Victorian era mysteries has Lenox starting a private detective agency after resigning his seat in Parliament. At first, he is frustrated because bad press has prevented him from bringing in his share of the business. However, when the Scotland Yard detective who was allegedly the source of the bad press is killed, Scotland Yard again requests his help. I enjoy these books not only because they are good stories, but also because they always have some interesting tidbit of English history or etymology. For example, I now know where the name Charing Cross comes from.

10. The Elephant Man by Vicki Croke: The story of an Englishman who humanized the treatment of elephants in the lumber camps of Burma and so was able to put together a formidable and useful force of elephants to assist the British in their defense and retreats during WWII.

I should note that I have not had the time to read Marilynne Robinson’s new book, Lila, which I suspect would have made this list. I would also like to mention Solo, by Rana Dasgupta, the story of a 100 year old man in Sofia, Bulgaria, looking back on his life. It was the best book I read this year that was published before 2014.

2 Comments | Best Books of the Year | Permalink
Posted by Stacy Alesi

Happy Holidays!

December 24, 2014

It’s that time of year again. Where did the year go? It feels like just yesterday my new website was up and running. So now that you’ve had almost a year to get used to it, I hope you are all happy with it.

This seems like a good time to say thank you to all my readers, to the authors who participate in book giveaways and guest blogs, and the publishers and publicists who are so passionate about all their new books. I am very grateful to have this platform to share my opinions and those of my reviewers.

I hope you’ll take a look at the Best Books of the Year lists – here’s mine: BookBitch

I’m going to take a few days to spend with my family. I’ll be back with a new list of books for you to win, and more reviews by the 1st of the year. 2015!

I wish you all a joyous holiday season, and a new year filled with wonderful reads!

Thank you all for reading.

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THE BAKER STREET LETTERS by Michael Robertson

December 22, 2014

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Reggie Heath got a great deal on his new office lease, but if he’d read the paperwork he’d have understood why. It’s his brother who points it out to him – a clause that stipulates that they, the holders of the new lease at 221 Baker Street, are responsible for handling correspondence addressed to a certain famed and fictional detective.

When Reggie’s brother Nigel becomes overly interested in one of the letters he hightails to America to track down the letter’s writer. But Reggie only realizes his brother is gone after discovering a dead body in his office. Reggie is almost certain there must be a connection and is forced to follow his brother to Los Angeles where they both find themselves in the midst of a decades-old mystery.

This first in Robertson’s series is quite fun! It’s a light mystery paying a bit of homage to Holmes while not being overly focused on Arthur Conan Doyle’s creation. Rather the premise is that Reggie and Nigel – two trained lawyers – are dragged into a mystery thanks to the address alone. (Which means you don’t have to be a Sherlock Holmes aficionado to enjoy this one.)

The Baker Street Letters is the first in the series. To date there are three additional titles that follow.

12/14 Becky LeJeune

THE BAKER STREET LETTERS by Michael Robertson. Minotaur Books; Reprint edition (February 1, 2011). ISBN: 978-0312650643. 288p.

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THE THREE by Sarah Lotz

December 21, 2014

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Four flights – all originating from different countries and each one from a different airline – crash on the same day, stirring up a whirlwind of controversy. But it’s not just the crashes themselves that have people talking. The crashes are the sort no one walks away from, and yet three of the flights have one survivor each. These survivors – all of them young children – and an odd phone message left by one of the dying passengers have spurred movements claiming everything from aliens to Armageddon. Are these children really harbingers of some biblical apocalypse or are they to become the victims of mass hysteria?

The Three is told in a very atypical way. It’s set up as being a book written in the immediate aftermath of the crash. The writer, Elspeth Martins, interviews the family members, airline officials, religious personalities… anyone and everyone with something to say about the crashes and the surviving children. Those interviews, correspondence, recordings, and even emails and online chats are The Three.

The Three is a quite disturbing read. It begins ominously and becomes more so as the book progresses. There is a definite supernatural aspect but that takes a serious backseat for most of the book. It is horror but not in the gore and monsters sense. It’s the human kind of horror. The way people react to the magnificent. The way people turn miracles into monstrosities. The way people handle the things they simply can’t understand.

12/14 Becky LeJeune

THE THREE by Sarah Lotz. Little, Brown and Company; First Edition edition (May 20, 2014). ISBN: 978-0316242905. 480p.

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OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon

December 20, 2014

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Narrated by Davina Porter

Many years ago, in a bookstore that is now just a footnote in history, a co-worker who became one of my closest friends insisted I read Outlander. It was shelved in Romance, I didn’t read romance and I resisted – but like any good bookseller, and any good friend, she wore me down and I capitulated. That book was almost 700 pages and I tore through it in a weekend, I literally could not put it down. I remember perching it on my kitchen counter while I made (burned?) dinner. But that was a long time ago, the 1990’s, so why am I writing about it now?

Well, like millions of other Outlander fans, I waited with hope and a tiny bit of cynicism for the Starz network series based on that book – and I fell in love with it all over again. And lest you think this is some woman’s thing, I have to tell you my husband has been listening to the audio version of this series and also loves it, and the TV series as well. Starz did an amazing job, from the casting to the location to the costumes to following the story Diana Gabaldon gifted us with while adding to it with stunning scenery and fantastic acting. Alas, this is not a review of the TV series (but watch it, people! You can watch the first episode for free)

My friend who had insisted I read Outlander also suggested the audio books. My first thought was I had read them already, why would I listen to books I had already read? Then my husband started listening and told me how fantastic the reader, Davina Porter, was. Then came the TV series and I decided that listening to the book would be a nice way to pass the time until the series picked up again. And I am ever so glad I did.

There are eight books in the series, and here they are in order:

1. Outlander
2. Dragonfly in Amber
3. Voyager
4. The Drums of Autumn
5. The Fiery Cross
6. A Breath of Snow and Ashes
7. An Echo in the Bone
8. Written in My Own Heart’s Blood

That 700 page first book in the series is also the shortest, so it has been many years and thousands of pages since I read Outlander. Listening to the fabulous Davina Porter brought it all back plus so much more, all those fascinating little details I had forgotten. It took me quite a while to read all 33+ hours; I have only a 10 minute commute to work, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

Outlander is one of those stories that is really hard to pin down. As I said, my bookstore had it in romance, other bookstores shelve it in science fiction/fantasy or just fiction. The basic premise is that our heroine Claire is a World War II nurse in England at the end of the war. She is married to Frank Randall, and they are rekindling their relationship after a long separation due to the war with a trip to Scotland. Claire visits a display of stones, rather like Stonehenge, but when she touches the stones, she finds herself back in 18th century Scotland. There she meets a long distant relative of her husband’s, the villainous Black Jack Randall, and she is forced into marrying a Scot, Jamie Fraser, who keeps her out of Randall’s clutches and probably jail. These are wild times in Scotland, just preceding the Jacobite rebellion, and Gabaldon does her homework. Claire and Jamie have incredible chemistry and their adventures keep the pages flying by.

Outlander was Gabaldon’s first novel. She was a college professor, a scientist and a researcher so when she decided to write fiction, she thought it would be easier to research it then to just make it up, and her attention to detail is astounding and completely fascinating. Gabaldon put serious thought into the time period – she saw an episode of Dr. Who where the good doctor ends up in Scotland and she decided that men in kilts were the way to go. As for Claire, she needed a protagonist who could easily adapt to the hardships of that earlier time period, so she created this nurse who had been through severe deprivation during the war, not to mention was battlefield ready, and her characters were born.

Outlander is a real love letter to Scotland – both the book and the TV series. I am now listening to Dragonfly in Amber, the second book in the series, which is even longer. I’ve taken to listening while I cook, which is much safer than trying to read!

12/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

OUTLANDER by Diana Gabaldon. Recorded Books. Audible.com Release Date: July 13, 2006. ASIN: B000GW8NVA. Listening Length: 33 hours and 8 minutes

Trade Paperback: Bantam; Mti edition (July 1, 2014). ISBN: 978-0553393705. 672p.

Note: I really don’t recommend the mass market paperbacks of these books, they are so unwieldy and I find them difficult to read, the books are just too big. And don’t forget you can get them at your local library!

3 Comments | Book Reviews, Fiction, Romance, Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Tagged: Historical, Time travel | Permalink
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