I thought that this would be the best week to talk about Outlander since the series wrapped up its first half of season one on Saturday evening. If any of you are as swept up in the world as I am, it was a tragic day indeed. But! While you suffer until it comes back on Starz in April, you can satiate your love for the Scottish Highlands with the novels upon which the series is based (all eight of them!).

I started the book a few weeks ago and then set it aside in favor of other things, until the series reached an impending big moment (I won't spoil it, but those of you who watch the series know what I'm talking about), which motivated me to pick the book back up again, and then I managed to voraciously consume it in a manner of weeks. It is, at its core, a book about time travel, so naturally things get a bit crazy, but Gabaldon does such an excellent job of transcending any genre that it could possibly exist in (fantasy, historical fiction, romance, adventure). I would liken it to the Game of Thrones series in that way; i.e., it is ideal for people who never read historical fiction or romance or fantasy, myself included; unlike GoT, however, the Outlander books have been written for a female audience. so you can read them without feeling guilty and recommend them without apology. If I had a teenage daughter I would definitely try to get her hooked on them as a passive way of teaching essential feminine/ist values and sex ed.