In a world gone mad for hobbits and rings, for space battles, starships, zombies and other dystopias, I just don’t get it.
I want my stories set on terra firma. The sun comes up where it’s supposed to and goes down where it’s supposed to. There are no trips down the rabbit hole, no clockworks orange or any other color. I can tolerate Atlanta burning, or people breaking each other’s hearts, beating each other up and all that, but none of this riding around in made-up worlds and dealing with fairies and what-not.
Except for the matter of time travel. I am a sucker for that.
It’s anchored in a familiar world. It’s just that the rules of that world are bent a little bit.
OK, a lot. Like this. 
But anyway, I’ve just come for air after A Breath of Snow and Ashes, book #6 in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novels.
You can study up on the earliest books here, here, and here, if you don’t mind Wikipedia spilling the story secrets.
As Breath of Snow opens, Claire and Jamie Fraser live on Fraser’s Ridge in the mountains of North Carolina. Jamie is something of a landlord to all the Scottish immigrants settled around them.
As always, Claire can tell Jamie what the future holds (there’s going to be a Revolutionary War) and which side will win. But the fun (for the readers, not the poor characters) lies in watching it unfold. Whether one is for the king, or for liberty, it’s dangerous to let on either way. The closer they get to war, the more they see mobs, tar and feathers. These people had best keep a fowling piece or a dirk handy.
Not only do the winds of war blow their way, but a news clipping from the future reports the death of Jamie Fraser in a fire a few years hence.
“I willna let it happen,” Jamie assures Claire.
We shall see.
Every once in a while up there on Fraser Ridge, these time-travelers meet some character whose eighteenth century-ness seems a little off. Then they wonder: Are there more like us?
It makes for delicious reading.
So cut yourself a piece of this moist Dark Chocolate and Raspberry Layer Cake and settle in for romance, adventure and a whole lotta Scottish brogue.
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