Outlander

... that you were reading her romance novels slash when did she find out, and what was her reaction?

Yeah, so she knew probably a fish when I started reading Outlander, and I think I was, like, 15 or 16 at that point.

Um-

Okay

It is essentially romance and fantasy mixed together, right? And it's that mushing of names that has become so popular, um, to then become a trend for publishing to, I think, um, you know, capitalize on, and for people to say, "Oh, romantasy, I know what that is and I like it." The problem is, is that the sub-genre w- within itself I think doesn't have, um, so many restrictions around it in the way that people f- can feel 100% that what they're reading is a romantasy, because there's so many different ideas of what that actually means.

For me, romantasy is a more romance-forward fantasy book, right? Um, and so you might have a fantasy that has romantic elements into it.

Some might argue that something like Outlander is, is a romance, um, a romantic fantasy, right, where, um, it has a very forward-looking romance story that's extremely important, and if you take that out, you don't have a story at all.

But the fantastical world-building is, is important, and it's there.

I love to pick long books for when I'm on vacation, as, as it's the best opportunity for me to read those chonkers." So Lori goes on, "I would like you to boss my big book TBR for these trips.

I do plan to read Outlander as one chonker because my daughter's begging me, and I want you to boss the rest.

Also, I will have some short books that I can fit in between these to break it up if needed.

So you don't have to consider that I'll be going directly from one to the next with these choices," which is really helpful.

I love it.

They need to bury me though with, they need to bury me with my copy of Outlander and the Bible.

There you go.

There you go.

That's a whole different kind of problem.

Let's look at Diana Gabaldon's epic from 1991, Outlander.

Here, we have Claire Randall, a combat nurse from 1945, who is on a second honeymoon in Scotland after World War II.

A very grounded historical start.

They will literally burn her at the stake for it.

She has to constantly mask her intelligence just to stay alive.

alive.And that tension is exactly why Outlander endures so powerfully.

Yes, it is famously a romance, and the character of Jamie Fraser is undeniably a massive draw.

All right, my next one is The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley, which came out in 2010.

I always love selling this as an, "If you loved Outlander, you'll love this book," kind of book, which typically everyone's like, "Okay, that's all I need to hear." I hand sell this one all the time.

Our main character is Carrie.

She's a struggling writer who decides to head to Slains Castle in Scotland to help her with her writer's block.

She just wrote them.

I mean, she literally wrote to the author of Outlander.

Yes.

But had a correspondence with Joan Didion.

There's two key texts here for me.

One is Outlander by Diana Gabaldon, where Claire is 27 and Jamie is 23.

Quite a small age gap.

Small enough that...

We have a sense that this is perhaps not the way things are supposed to be.

even if that age gap is really quite small.

So look at a book like Outlander, for instance.

When that begins, Claire is 27 and Jamie is 23.

Um, or at least I did.

Well, technically, I start, technically I started with Outlander really.

Uh, like-

Yeah, that's true