Diana Gabaldon's Outlander - A Classic, Swashbuckling, Historical Tale (with Time Travel Too)

It was called Cross Stitch in my native Britain. Apparently the publishers didn't want the novel to be confused with Australians, though why Outlander should suggest the fine denizens Down Under to us was never quite explained.

Back in the States, the publishers there worried that Americans would think it was a story about sewing, so they promptly changed the title back to Outlander.

Even in Britain, we call it that too. And Outlander is worth any amount of discussion.

I've known about it for years.  Lived and dreamed it too. Back in the day, an American friend asked me if I'd read the book. She checked both titles with me, and when I said no, she didn't bother to ask if I'd like to read them. She just sent the first three novels over the Atlantic to me.

I won't recount what happened next, as I already did that in the massive fan-girl gushing that was my Finding Out They're Adapting Outlander For TV article. Let's just say that I loved it, and so did the other half a billion people to whom I recommended it. And bought copies for - birthdays, Christmas, Hallmark Days, auntie dying in a hospice...

Decades on, I can still say that Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series amounts to one of the best stories that I've ever enjoyed. These aren't one off reads. You'll dive in time and time again. There's no coming back, once you've gone through those stones.

You must be wondering by now what Outlander is all about. Let me bring you into the loop, or in this case the stone circle.

Though trust me, a synopsis is barely worth pausing over. I've never known ANYONE (male, female, young, old, whatever nation) who hasn't loved every word of it.

After the end of World War Two, Claire Randall is in Inverness with her husband Frank. The couple have barely seen each other since the war began.

Call it a second honeymoon, or rediscovering who they married all those years ago, before active service sent them to different battle fronts. What it amounts to now is a lot of sight-seeing, picnics, driving across the Scottish Highlands, and visiting its ancient stone circles.

Except there is something in Claire's genetic make-up which doesn't factor for Frank. Something that burns red hot, when she touches those megaliths, and which eventually pulls her right through.

The wartime nurse is now in landscape which looks very familiar, but only because those lonely stones haven't altered much in thousands of years, let alone a mere two centuries. She's in 1742 and her English accent won't save her from marauding, sadistic red-coat soldiers. But the Highlanders might.

Outlander is a story about a woman desperate to return to her own time, yet finding a 6ft 3", red-headed good Gaelic reason to linger. It's also a tale about war, survival and the horrors of an Occupation. It's about knowing terrible things before they happen, then exploring the philosophical and moral imperative to stop them (Culloden anyone?). And it's about everyday life in 18th century Scotland too - the clan system and the tartan, the warriors and the cattle thieves, the clash of religions and ways of life, the witch trials and the fairy faith.

Diana Gabaldon did her research. I'm a historian, and there's little I could find there that was too anachronistic. (And nothing at all which she didn't point out herself, with reasons as to why she left such details in - usually because people expected them!  Yes, we are looking at you, kilts.)