Tamara Burke

A good look at the history of the Highland Clearances in a bite sized package.

yes.

I've been spoiled by Diana Gabaldon and her Outlander series. Nothing else compares.

The history is painstakingly accurate, the premise wildly creative, the use of description outstanding... this is the writer I wish I could be, read by a spot on reader who, in over 200 hours of reading remains absolutely spot on the entire time. This is a work of art.

These books are huge, and the temptation, when reading them, is to skim, to find out what happens next. You can't skim in an audiobook, so you can fully enjoy the writer's incredible use of image and character. Furthermore, the reader gets the pronunciation right. I haven't a clue how to correctly pronounce the gaelic.

It made me late to work. It made me stay out weeding the garden to picture perfect perfection. It made me ignore my husband. It made me read the history of the period (I recommend 1776). It inspired me to create art of my own.

Some people don't like this writer's work. When the zombie apocalypse hits? Those people will not be bunking at my house!

Absolutely. McCullough does an amazing job of making the uncertainty and effort of 1776 immediate and vibrant.

When I found myself thinking I would capitulate and take the oath as offered by the King rather than risk family and property in this obviously absurd venture. And I knew the ending as I was thinking this!

The year is the character. The performance is not dramatic, it is factual, and it is still edge of your seat. I'm a 7th generation New Englander, Maine and VT. I live on a farm that was purchased from no less a personage than Ira Allen. We fought (ok, we drank ourselves insensible most likely) at Ticonderoga.

And still I was at the edge of my seat and had to make an effort to remember I was driving a car.

No. You do, after all, know the ending.

Amazing piece of work. Absolutely stunning achievement.

Probably not.

A Diana Gabaldon, one of the Lord John series.

Perhaps, but not if he's reading a romance.

Both protagonists.

I decided if the author used, when I was about 3/4 of the way through this thing "it was exquisite" one more time I was going to pan the book. Unfortunately, once you've listened to Gabaldon's Outlander series your expectations for description, characters, and the intelligence of female characters in particular, rises to the point where a great number of the romance writers are no longer able to meet your expectations.

And I had such high hopes for this book based on the synopsis.

Perhaps someone else will have better luck with this, I found it repetitive and predictable. And, of course, this meant I found the female lead naive to the point of absurd. Really, you're going to crawl into bed with a man, trusting your father, who you know to be manipulative and completely untrustworthy, to "rescue" you? You're going to rush off, defying logic and orders, because you're a clever girl who can read?

Disappointing, and read by a man, which was distinctly unsettling when "it was exquisite" was used repeatedly to describe any and all sexual arousal.