Outlander

Hey guys it's Lydia here! I finished Outlander a few days ago and I have a few views and opinions I'd like to express.

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Published: 1st June 1991
Publisher: Arrow
Pages: 864
Genre: Historical fiction, fiction, romance

Small description (from Amazon)

1946, and Claire Randall goes to the Scottish Highlands with her husband Frank. It’s a second honeymoon, a chance to learn how war has changed them and to re-establish their loving marriage.
But one afternoon, Claire walks through a circle of standing stones and vanishes into 1743, where the first person she meets is a British army officer - her husband’s six-times great-grandfather.

Unfortunately, Black Jack Randall is not the man his descendant is, and while trying to escape him, Claire falls into the hands of a gang of Scottish outlaws, and finds herself a Sassenach - an outlander - in danger from both Jacobites and Redcoats.

Marooned amid danger, passion and violence, her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.

Review

Outlander as a whole was a fantastic read, even though I'm going to discuss aspects of the book I didn't enjoy, generally it was an exciting read all the way through.

Again like in my last review, I would recommend this book to readers who are aged eighteen and above, because there's quite a lot of sexual language.

The time settings of the book (there are two) are very interesting, as at the beginning the story is set after the Second World War, a time of peace and tranquility, where society was trying to rebuild their lives after six years of horrific war. But Clair, our narrator is transported back in time to the 18th century, a completely different and perhaps brutal society. However, another view could be that Clair is transported back into a similar atmosphere of the war, and evermore reflects her 20th century life in the progress of the Battle of Culloden (16th April 1746). The time difference may have been created by Gabaldon to convey how decorum has changed over the years, and that peoples attitude towards one another became less harsh and savage.

The plot was well structured and written, keeping myself as a reader full of excitement and anticipation for what was next to come. This can also be said about the characters. While I actually read the book by listening to the audio version, I felt that I more vividly imagined and heard the characters when they spoke to one another, as through their voices and dialogue I could understand their sense of character. Like the Harry Potter series, Outlander has many characters, and all are explored and used well in the journey the reader takes with Clair into the new and scary world of the past. My favourite character is Clair, as I think she is for many readers. I enjoyed her as a character and a narrator because although she is launched into a new place, her sense of self and character doesn't change. She is still the same strong-minded, determined, passionate and kind-hearted person she was in 1946 and 1743.

My other favourite character is Jamie Fraser. Although I dislike some of the aspects the character is involved in (which I will comment on further on), he really is  brilliant. I felt that I couldn't write a review about Outlander without discussing Jamie. As a reader and writer, I have connections with characters, and I feel like he is a genuine person and very down to earth; Gabaldon has created someone unique. I won't say too much about him, as I like to keep my reviews as spoiler free as possible. But my favourite aspect I like about Jamie, is that for most of the part, he treats people with respect.

That brings me into the romance of the book. The love interest in Outlander is gradual, and this make the story feel more realistic and personal, in some books the romance is really corny, like 'I saw her face and knew that I would love her forever'. However, you watch Jamie and Clair become friends, lovers and then soulmates. This is in retrospect with the TV series. Although I do love the live action version of the characters, I felt that there wasn't enough awkwardness in the TV series as there was in the book (as Clair and Jamie married for practical reasons), and that the characters on screen adapted to each other as a married couple too quickly.

On the flip side of romance, I'm going to discuss the sexual assaults and manipulations in Outlander. While reading these horrific moments, and becoming enraged and pitiful for the characters, I feel that Gabaldon, again has included these interactions and descriptions in her book because she wants to get her readers to understand the low treatment people had of each other. While it is mostly men of women, we do encounter a reversal, the reader shall also feel and understand the shame and isolation of sexual assault other from a female perspective. I just disliked the way some of the male characters spoke to women. Even when Jamie and Clair are married, he became brutish and used sadism against her, and plainly because it was how husbands disciplined their wives (I know I sound negative about Jamie, but honestly he does love Clair). I can understand the marital customs of the time, but it was hard for me to listen to as a 21st century reader. However, as I have said before, perhaps the writer has pushed the reader into hard and uncomfortable situations between people, because she is trying to mirror current treatment men and women have of each other, and perhaps it doesn't differ so much as it did almost three hundred years ago.

I hope you like my review of Outlander, and I also hope I didn't spoil any of the book for you. It was a historical and loving read.

The Miseries of Mr. Sparrows

Hello dearies, this is Heather! Like a very dreary twist on Alice in Wonderland, we’ve all fallen down a rabbit hole, sadly filled with textbooks and spring revision materials, so if we’re a little less frequent with the updates then that’ll be why. Thank you to the author for sending us this book in exchange for an honest review!

Information

Author: Matthew A.J. Timmins

Published: November 2015

Publisher: Self-published

Length: 179 pages

Rating (all out of five)

Characters: ★★★★★

Plot: ★★★★ ½

Writing Quality: ★★★★★

Overall: ★★★★★

“Directly over the clerks’ room, on the ground floor—nearer to Heaven by elevation only—was the office of the Winstons, two thirds of Winston Winston & Crumpet: perhaps the most powerful, certainly the wickedest firm in all the Empire.”

The Miseries of Mr. Sparrow tells the story of Robin Sparrow; a clerk working for the law firm Winston Winston and Crumpet, as he embarks on a quest to deliver a parcel to Mr. Tarnish. Set within the Victorian era any fans of Dickens will be sure to enjoy this quirky tale as they follow the troublesome and somewhat fatal adventures of Robin.

The plot to description ratio was excellent. I found the plot fairly easy to follow, my only slight (and I mean very minor indeed) criticism being that there could be more information about how Robin found all the places and people he visited. I particularly enjoyed the ending, and was pleased to find that it was not at all rushed; a consistency of quality writing being apparent throughout. The entire story was coherently written, Robin having the sole aim of delivering the package, there were no unnecessary romances blossoming or bizarre additions. The characterisation was another element to be praised. The reader pities dear Robin who is rather thrown into the task of locating Mr. Tarnish without any kindness from his evil employees, and seems to be blamed for a multitude of extraordinary things. The police team were perhaps my favourite – with outstandingly wild theories over how Mr. Tarnish had committed some deeds, they proved to be very comedic.

The writing style is confident, witty and intelligent with all the warmth that the best authors carry. From the genre description of somewhat Dickensian I knew that this would be a good read and I was certainly not wrong there – it’s rare that I’ll write an honest review for an author’s first novel and struggle to find any improvements at all but in this circumstance even the font was beautiful! The book contains lots of literature goodies, with minor references to Greek mythology, Dante’s Inferno, Sherlock Holmes and character comparisons to Iago (Othello) and Merlin. As an English Literature student, naturally this meant I was beaming at each.

Normally I’d write a longer review but I’m not sure what else I can say except that it is an excellent read. There’s nothing in it that stands out as inappropriate so I’d recommend this to all ages. I look forward to reading more of Timmin’s work in the future! 

If you'd like to buy this, here's the link to the Amazon page: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Miseries-Mr-Sparrows-Matthew-Timmins-ebook/dp/B017Y7N8D2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1491847912&sr=8-1&keywords=the+miseries+of+mr+sparrow 

The Eye of Neferiti (Book 2 in the Pharaoh's Cat series)

Hiya, this is Heather posting today. When we received an email asking us to review a book about a time travelling Egyptian cat, I basically begged the other two to let me do this one, and I was not let down.

Author: Maria Luisa Lang

Published: November 2016

Publisher: Self-published

The Eye of Nefertiti does act as a sequel to The Pharaoh’s cat, but can be read as a stand-alone novel without leaving the reader lost or confused since the book refers back to any vital events. No surprises here - the protagonist is a time travelling kitty from the Egyptian era named Wrappa-Hamen, accompanied by the High Priest with his partner Elena and their son. They occupy Elena’s home before zipping over to England for Elena to work in Bath. This book is filled with all the classics of a fantasy book: prophecies, a dysfunctional family, a bit of humour and the fast-paced, dialogue packed writing style that still lets us visualise what’s happening without any confusion. Since this week has been far too chaotic, I’m doing this review in a simpler way than I normally do – things I loved and things that could have been improved.

I really liked how the author included snippets of Egyptian history in the book, much like Sutcliff’s novel The Eagle of the Ninth, the reader can become enthralled with learning about ancient history as they follow the story. I’m pretty sure at least half of my knowledge of Ancient Greece is based from the Percy Jackson series. The relationship between Wrappa-Hamen and the High Priest was cleverly constructed, with both of them sharing amusing experiences and covering for each other to keep their deviances from Elena. Their bond from being from Ancient Egypt means they show trust between each other. I found Elena to be another great character and would have liked to have seen more of her, she proved herself to be a nice contrast between the more comedic and clumsy others with her smart, earnest and caring qualities. There were several settings within the book, but the clarity of writing meant this was not puzzling. The most confident and vivid descriptions were certainly the ones of Egypt, particularly when they visit the market. The final part I'd like to praise is the front cover, I only have this in a pdf version but isn't it beautiful?!

Whilst I must stress that this book was very much an enjoyable read, I do confess that I had a few qualms. Firstly, Wrappa-Hamen was a little bit too humanised for me – this is a purely personal view, but I found that the charm of having a cat protagonist less apparent when he was able to make a peanut butter sandwich, develop feelings for a woman and drink alcohol as well as talk. It is very clear that the novel is fantasy, but regardless I would avoid animals consuming alcohol in literature, even some adults can be stupid enough to dismiss the fantasy label and give their cats alcohol (I know a family that gave their dog chocolate, which is a crazy risk to take considering it’s poisonous). I was not quite certain of the target audience for this book, the style reminded me somewhat of Rick Riordan; it was light-hearted, educative and descriptive but not overly so. Thus, I was startled to see words like ‘womb’ pop up and mention of testicles and breasts, changing my perception of the audience to at least over 13s. To be honest, I think this book would rise a lot in popularity if the author had left out these bits and made it more PG to attract a pre-teen audience. Especially since the protagonist is a cat, which is a pretty dignified animal, the talk of testicle size is a little uncomfortable.

Any fans of fantasy novels with elements of comedy and history mingled will find this book appealing. There were a few minor aspects that I wasn't too keen on but this is based on my opinion so don’t let it sway you away from reading this; the majority of the book is a charming read.

To buy this book, order it on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Eye-Nefertiti-Maria-Luisa-Lang/dp/0996335218/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1480706159&sr=8-1&keywords=maria+luisa+lang