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Book Review of Outlander (Outlander, Bk 1)

Outlander (Outlander, Bk 1)
Outlander (Outlander, Bk 1)
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Romance
Book Type: Hardcover
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I was pleasantly surprised by this book, given the Harlequin romance novel premise. (I had to take other reviewers words that this was in fact a quality book) It's quite well written...the characters are complex and believable. The story is far fetched but fascinating. Some of the exchanges between characters are quite amusing, if not laugh out loud funny. The content of this book ranges from hilarious to downright disturbing. Clever segues and surprisingly few plotholes for such a complex story. The author has a gift, there's no doubt about it. I think my main complaint would have to be the enormous amount of sex in this book. I'm a prude by no stretch of the imagination (perv by nature, actually)....but my idea of love and romance does not focus on sex so completely. I lost count of how many times the heroine was saved from a savage rape in progress...or how many times Jamie stroked Claire's breasts whimpering Holy Gods and going down on her. I'm all about a few well placed sex scenes, but there were sooo many of them they seemed more deserving of a place in some above mentioned Harlequin romance smut than in cheapening this otherwise engaging novel. It's not going to stop me from picking up the second book in the series though, as overall it's quite an impressive read.