How did you find the series?
I've been very pleased by the response to this month's poll so far. Thanks to everybody who's already voted!
As a relative newcomer to the series myself, I think it's interesting to hear how others found the OUTLANDER books. Please feel free to share your stories here!
My own experience goes something like this (apologies to those of you who saw this when I posted it on Compuserve a couple of months ago):
I first noticed OUTLANDER while browsing in a Barnes & Noble bookstore sometime in the summer or fall of 2006. It was the small-size (mass-market) paperback version. I remember it was on a rack at the end of one of the aisles, or I probably would never have noticed it. <g>
My eye was caught by the striking blue color of the cover, and I picked it up (a little startled by the size of it, but not at all put off -- I like Big Fat Historical Novels
And so I put it back on the rack. Walked out of the store, and promptly forgot the author's name (quite unintentionally) ***. But I hadn't forgotten about the book, by any means, and I promised myself that if and when I ever saw it again, I'd give it a closer look. A couple of months went by, and then I finally did find OUTLANDER again. I still hesitated (my thought at the time was, it's an awfully big book to buy if you're not sure ahead of time if you'll like it or not).
So I went home without buying it, again, and with the name of the book and the author firmly fixed in my memory this time <g>, looked up the Amazon reviews. (Lots of talk in there about the Wentworth scenes, but I'd already had a bit of warning about that, having flipped through the book in the bookstore. The first bit of a scene I read was the part where Jamie tells Claire about the fortress inside him, so I knew something awful was going to happen to him. But I had no idea just how devastating it would be. Not a clue.)
I was still wavering, undecided, and then I got a B&N gift card for my birthday. And I figured, why not? <g>
* Took me a LONG time to learn otherwise.
** Mea culpa #1 (This particular thought makes me want to go back in time and slap myself.
*** Mea culpa #2. I would have been hooked two or three months earlier if I'd just bought the darn book the first time I saw it! <wry g>
What about the rest of you? At what point did you find the series, and what made you decide to read the books the first time?
Back then we were about 4 or 5 girls in my class who lent favourite books to each other. One day one of the girls came up to me and said "There's this book I think you'll like. It's fat and the story takes place in Scotland."
She knew well enough that I didn't need any more info. :)
That was around the time Drums of Autumn had been published in Germany. Needless to say I got hooked immediately :)
Nina
Lauren
"No other author, in my humble opinion, can match the quality of her writing, and very few books that I have read in recent years can stand up to her genius. She has me totally spoiled!!"
I've heard a lot of people say this, and I agree. Not sure I would use the word "genius" (she's a human being like the rest of us <g>) but extraordinary talent, definitely!
Karen
1992? Wow! I always feel like such a newbie compared to those of you who have been fans since the beginning. ECHO is the first one of Diana's books that I have had to wait for. I just can't imagine what it must have been like in those years between DRAGONFLY and VOYAGER. <shudder>
Karen
I've read many books that claim to be like Diana's, but none measure up in my opinion.
Using my best Jamie impersonation: "I dinna say she was a saint, lass; only verrrrra smart, ye ken?" :)
My friend was reading a chapter or two every night and the next day, before entering class, she
described the chapters down to the last detail to us.
In the middle of the story it had me so hooked I decided to buy the book without waiting to hear the end, and from there began my love for this series.
Now I have the habit of reading at least once a year Outlander, and I still like the book as the first day!
I fondly remember how my friend told us about Jamie , how we hate Randall and how we envied Claire.
When I was 19 and about three books deep, I moved to Ireland and met a very tall man named Colm that initially reminded me of Jamie. We got married last year. Thanks to DG for that one, wonder if she knows she was basically my wingman the night I met my husband lol
when i found out it was the first in a series, i had some misgivings. i really didn't want to get into another series (after Harry Potter, and some others) because i really didn't have time to be reading several books, and i knew that if i enjoyed the first one, i'd want to read the second one immediately, and the subsequent ones right afer the other. nonetheless, i waited for a week for it to arrive at my library (i rarely buy books for the simple reason that i read them too quickly and have limited space on my bookshelves.) i could not put that book down. i couldn't wait to get home from the grocery store, or whatever other errand i was running, and open it up and read more. i found myself setting toys in front of my boys in the living room, and sitting down (in the same room--i'm not that bad of a parent!) with my book. i can't believe i neglected them that way, but naptime was too far away! i was hooked, and as soon as i finished outlander, i ran to the library and picked up dragonfly.
needless to say, i have since bought all the books, and made space for them on my bookshelf (right next to Harry Potter.) i also have my wits about me to be a better mommy to my growing boys than i was in the few weeks it took me to read those first 6 books!! thank goodness for that!
That semester, I skipped classes. I just could not stop reading. I remember sitting at my desk. I was supposed to study for my exams. But I just HAD to finish Outlander first.
When I finally did, I spent half an hour staring at the wall in front of me. I was overwhelmed. When I got out of my "trance", I wrote down Diana's name on a piece of paper, along with "Jamie Fraser".
This was before we had internet access, so it was a while before I found the scrap of paper again and took it with me to the library. There, I found out that there were two more books! Wow!
After Voyager, I just started buying the books myself. And have been re-reading them ever since. I must have read Outlander at least 10 times, in Dutch and English.
About a year ago, so late 2012, I got an Audible subscription and was looking for the biggest book I could find to really get the most "bang for my buck" for my monthly $16 credit. I don't remember how I came across Outlander, but took one look at the length of it, and the rest of the books in the series, and figured that would last me a while!!
After I finished Outlander, I still had another 2 weeks until I got my next monthly Audible credit and I about died - and it was the same for the next 6 books! I'd always have this period of about 2 weeks that would be torture!
After I finished Echo, I immediately looked up when MOBY would be coming out. To stave me off, I decided to read the Lord John books. I read all but Zombies & Scottish Prisoner and heard people were re-reading the entire series in preparation for MOBY and thought that was a good idea so decided to wait and read those two after I did Voyager again.
I am SOOOOO hooked on this series. I recently got a friend started and she and I are on the same book as I re-read, but she's about a week behind me. I figure she'll catch up when I get to those 2 Lord John books!
My husband has overheard some of it while we're in the car together and now calls it my "smut" because of the sex scenes. I am adamant that it is NOT SMUT, but he is not a reader and so just does not understand... *sigh...
I had just retired after 45 years as an RN/nursing educator. We were staying in a small town in NC as part of our travels in 2007. We had visited Israel and the western US. We visited NC in the fall on our way back to Fl. I love big thick books and was in the town book store shopping. A book caught my eye. A paper back with a great cover and intriguing title, "Dragonfly in Amber". I Took it home and couldn't read it fast enough. Then noticed it was the second book in the series. I went to the library and read "Outlander". We returned to Fl and read the books already written up to A Breath of Snow and Ashes. They were wonderful. Just my kind of book full of detail, interesting characters, and intrigue, not to mention romance. I loved the medical connection especially. I hAve to agree with all the positive comments about DG's writing in other posts. My best friends are reading them as well as my husband. He is on his second time through. We are all watching and loving the series. I keep finding folks who have read them. We are Scots and joined the Friends of the Scottish Tartan Museum in our NC town. Our meetings start with Outlander updates. We frequently go to Highland Games for our group. We organize our annual Scottish festival in NC "Taste of Scotland" Where we live in the mountains of NC is not far from Fraser's Ridge. Many members of our NC church are fans also. We are all obsessed.
And you can easily imagine what happened next. Not only I successfully hooked up a couple of friends to the "Outlander" but just look at this bookshelf, it was completed on March 8th, when I got four last novels as a present from my husband for that quasiholiday, still popular in Russia.
Needless to add that for Christmas and for the New Year I got both seasons of the show plus several Outlandish souvenirs... in short, you can see that my family wanted me to have the best holiday season ever.
Unfortunately the picture didn't want to attach, but since then I got an addition: my younger daughter gave me "The Scottish Prisoner" for my last birthday.