AppleBird

Once started, I found this book hard to put down. Although the main character seems somewhat one-dimensional, the story held my interest. The book offers a whole new take on time travel, which I found intriguing in all its implications.

The Aubrey-Maturin series is one of my favourite series of historical fiction. The historical backgrounds are well-researched and accurate, the plots intriguing, the writing superb. What's more, the stories are told with some humour, and with real love for the main characters which are thouroughly human and likeable despite (or because of) their faults. And there's plenty of naval warfare action, plus some science thrown in too.
The narrator of this first book in the series is excellent, he strikes exactly the right tone of voice.
I can't wait for the whole series to become available (*unabridged*!).

I found this quite hard going. I could not sympathise with the main character, and did not get into this story at all.

This book was hard to put down, even though some of the violent scenes were really hard to listen to. I'm a bit squeamish in that regard, so will be reading the remainder of this trilogy on paper, which I find less confronting than audio.
That said, the story is gripping and the narration is fine.

Reading this book gave me a series of "Aha!" moments. How wonderful and comforting to realize that my introverted nature is a strength, and does not need to be counted a weakness.
I also found it fascinating to learn about the psychology and sociology around this topic.

In 4 separate stories, this book looks at the way mankind has influenced the evolution and global distribution of specific plants (apples, tulips, potatoes and marijuana). This leads the author to question who is actually using who.
I found the stories interesting and fun.
The narrator's voice is somewhat nasal, which annoyed me a little bit, but not such that it marred by enjoyment of the book.

It took me a little while to get into this, but once there I thoroughly enjoyed it. I particularly enjoyed the concept of characters from a story being read out of the book into our world.

Well written, though possibly a little bit longer than it needed to be. It held my attention though, it was an intriguing read. The who-dunnit aspect is clever, and had me puzzled for a long time.

Diana Gabaldon's Outlander series (of which this is the first book) offers a rich mix of romance and historical fiction, with time travel as a mechanism to enable a 20th-century woman and an 18th-century Scotsman to meet and fall in love.

Key ingredients to the whole series:
* Feisty heroine, verra handsome hero, dastardly bad guy
* Romance
* Interesting additional characters and subplots
* Excellent writing
* Solid historical background

Both the paper books and the audio books are firm favorites that I re-visit every now and again. Once I start reading or listening, I cannot stop until the book is finished. And then I want to start on the next book a.s.a.p.

This whole series is great. See my review of Outlander (Cross Stitch). The time travel element adds extra interest to the already excellent romance story.