Any Diana Gabaldon Fans?

[PWS]

Nearing end of my current book...even though I love the series I may have to "cleanse my palate" by reading something else in between. These are so detailed and addictive that I am dreaming about them now. I need a good murder mystery or something in between!

[Kiz]

PWS, did you pause at Drums of Autumn? Young Jamie or middle aged Jamie, now if I was dreaming about him, I'd keep reading..lol Jamie has lost a little of his lustiness of late though.

As others have said, The Fiery Cross has started off a little on the slow side. There were nights when I was reading the other books that I just had to skip ahead a bit to get to the resolution in a story arc, so that I could put the book down and go to sleep. So far, I've been able to put this book down. It's a bit of a relief..lol

[PWS]

PWS, did you pause at Drums of Autumn? Young Jamie or middle aged Jamie, now if I was dreaming about him, I'd keep reading..lol Jamie has lost a little of his lustiness of late though.

As others have said, The Fiery Cross has started off a little on the slow side. There were nights when I was reading the other books that I just had to skip ahead a bit to get to the resolution in a story arc, so that I could put the book down and go to sleep. So far, I've been able to put this book down. It's a bit of a relief..lol

Yes, I read something in between... but, wow, do other books seem short by comparison. I'm doing this on Kindle, except for Outlander which I read several years ago. These latest ones must be real doorstoppers in paper. I was ok with TFC, unlike many others here, but I really like stories about what life was like day to day in "olden times", and there was a lot of that. Some of my ancestors were already in the to be States by the time of TFC, although up north in more settled areas, so it made me feel connected to them.
I was going to read something between TFC and the Blood and Ashes one but the timing didn't work out, so now I'm already into that one. Only a couple of years before the Revolution now....and not much longer after that

Used the spoiler tags in case there's anyone behind me in the series. Re Jamie's lustiness...they are in their 50's now, still doing pretty well for their ages---no need for some Native American version of Viagra yet! I am waiting for a little more gray to creep into the hair though.... Also, how is Claire staying so "white" even though she's out in the sun a lot with no sunscreen? She's made soft soap and shampoo now, but I don't see any mention of sunscreen. I'm also surprised she routinely wears stays...

[gracie]

I don't think she does wear them on the mountain so much. It's more for around other people and Jamie's 18th century sensabilities.

[PWS]

I don't think she does wear them on the mountain so much. It's more for around other people and Jamie's 18th century sensabilities.

That's what I would have thought (e.g., wear them when visiting Aunt Jocasta but not at home), but there have been some undressing scenes at home that involved them as well....

[Kiz]

Yes, I read something in between... but, wow, do other books seem short by comparison. I'm doing this on Kindle, except for Outlander which I read several years ago. These latest ones must be real doorstoppers in paper. I was ok with TFC, unlike many others here, but I really like stories about what life was like day to day in "olden times", and there was a lot of that. Some of my ancestors were already in the to be States by the time of TFC, although up north in more settled areas, so it made me feel connected to them.
I was going to read something between TFC and the Blood and Ashes one but the timing didn't work out, so now I'm already into that one. Only a couple of years before the Revolution now....and not much longer after that

Used the spoiler tags in case there's anyone behind me in the series. Re Jamie's lustiness...they are in their 50's now, still doing pretty well for their ages---no need for some Native American version of Viagra yet! I am waiting for a little more gray to creep into the hair though.... Also, how is Claire staying so "white" even though she's out in the sun a lot with no sunscreen? She's made soft soap and shampoo now, but I don't see any mention of sunscreen. I'm also surprised she routinely wears stays...

I finally got past the Gathering in The Fiery Cross, and the story really picked up steam. Glad to say that Jamie got his mojo back, and is as passionate, tender, larger than life, courageous, and humorous as ever. I think the story just got a little too tedious for my liking in the beginning but after the first 200+ pages it got exciting again.

I'm happy that Claire is carrying on with her penicillin experiments in her surgery, and I had wondered if that was something she'd try to do. I never realized how hard it would be to create the right conditions for penicillin to grow.

We were watching one of the Star Trek movies where they go back to 1980s earth, and Kirk and Bones end up in a hospital looking for Chekov who had been injured. Bones cured a few people (gave one woman who was on dialysis a pill to grow a new kidney), and he kept commenting on how barbaric the medical treatments were in that day. It made me think of Claire, and her view of the state of medicine in the 1700s.

[Kiz]

RE: Claire and Brianna wearing stays while at home.

I had certainly noticed they were binding them up and taking them off, but I had not noticed if Brianna and Claire were wearing them in their own homes.

Since it had been brought up here in the posts, this stood out to me: In TFC, Brianna mentioned that she was glad that she had smelled the gingerbread earlier in the afternoon that Mrs. Bug was cooking, and that she had the foresight to remove her stays before sitting down to supper. Roger, Jemmy and Brianna were having supper with her parents, so she was wearing them while at her cabin &/or her parents' home.

Claire was a young woman in the 1940s and Brianna in the 1960s when it was still common for women to wear girdles, so maybe it would come more natural for them to wear stays to tighten things up even while not dressing up. Personally, I couldn't even imagine a girdle, let alone whale bone stays.

[MRD]

In one of the books, Claire mentions that the stays help support her back (it's one of the later ones, so she's older) so that makes sense.
AND stays of that time were not as restrictrive as the stays and corsets that came during the 1850's, etc.
They weren't like Mammy pulling the corset strings to get Scarlett a 19 inch waist. They gave more structure to the outward look of the clothing, more than keeping a woman binded up tight.
I saw a live program on the dress of Colonial Women at the time of the Revolution. They used a live model and dressed her explaining each garment as it was layered on. This would have been for someone more well to do (or when Clair and Jaime were at society functions), but she did explain that stays were not tight back then.

[Kiz]

Thanks for the additional information on stays, myrosiedog. It sounds like they followed the trend of most fads, there's a little good at first, then it gets to a ridiculous stage, then peters out, often just to start all over again.

A little off tangent, but still on TFC.

(minor spoiler if you haven't read TFC yet)

[PWS]

Thanks for the additional information on stays, myrosiedog. It sounds like they followed the trend of most fads, there's a little good at first, then it gets to a ridiculous stage, then peters out, often just to start all over again.

A little off tangent, but still on TFC.

(minor spoiler if you haven't read TFC yet)

Yes, I was surprised at that also.
I'm in the book after TFC now and there have been several more times where Claire is wearing her stays in everyday settings (it gets mentioned when the everyday setting turns tough and eventually the stays are digging into her).
It's getting closer to the Revolution now and Jamie is trying to decide when to jump ship, from supporting the British as most of the Scots do, to supporting the Revolution. It's been explained that likely the Scots took the British side (even though the Brits ran them out of Scotland, so you'd think they'd hate them) because they had already lost everything being against the Brits in one uprising and weren't likely to risk it all again in a new one. Good point I thought. Of course that may change as we get closer to 1776... but it where things are now.
They are really going to have to explain how all these great inventions of Claire's and Brianna's are going to disappear without a trace in "modern" history.
Still as addictive as ever. Is this the last one out, or are there more already published? (Currently in Snow & Ashes) It looks like there is one more, Echo in the Bone... have I missed any?