Have any of these been done on this site?

I think I read that first book in this series and liked it - I'd liked to begin again.

And I'd like to discuss it on a site where people actually talk - like this one!

Wild City Woman,

I've read the first two books and started the third. I wrote a review of what I had read so far on a string somewhere here, I remember, but true to form, I was bringing it into a discussion on something else that was marginally related at the time so I don't recall where it is.

I would probably jump in and out of a discussion on these books if it were held here. They are certainly interesting and creative. I heard from the woman who recommended them to me that the first is the best and that after a while, they start to drag out a little and be less well-written, but I don't know.

I usually would not consider romance but I like time travel and Scotland so I read several in the series a few years ago and had fun with them.
I was actually fortunate enough to read the books in Scotland, which helped to create enthusiasm.

Question: Would this have been such a success if Jamie wasn't such an attractive character and the readers weren't female?

Anyway, I love situations where the characters end up in another time and place and have to make the best of it in a realistic way.
The first and the second books in the series are good, but at some stage in the series the author runs out of steam, and I didn't read the last books, which were getting tedious.


It's nice to be taken to Scotland at the time of the last battles with the English, then how they were punished after their last defeat, this part was well done.

I'm interested in history and if a time travel book has nothing for the history buff in me I lose interest quickly.

My absolute favourite in time travel (not that I've read many, because of the romance problem) is "The Mirror", by Marlys Millhiser. It's very cleverly made, you learn a lot about the two eras that are switched, and I felt very interested in the characters.


I didn't like "The Time Traveller's Wife", that so many other people liked.
It seemed to me that it was just a love story (though I admit I did not persevere for very long).

Ophelia, I'm so glad you answered this topic! It's great to read your postings again. I hope it means you are feeling better. You said:

I'm interested in history and if a time travel book has nothing for the history buff in me I lose interest quickly.

Me, too. Have you read any books by Cecilia Holland? I have read many of them and I like many of them. They are historic novels and they contain some romance, but are not primarily romances. They also sometimes contain fantasy, but not time travel. I wonder if you would like them.

Ophelia also wrote:

My absolute favourite in time travel (not that I've read many, because of the romance problem) is "The Mirror", by Marlys Millhiser. It's very cleverly made, you learn a lot about the two eras that are switched, and I felt very interested in the characters.

I'm going to go and look for this as soon as I can, maybe tomorrow!

I think time travel would be much worse than anyone I have ever read represents it to be. For one thing, I have yet to see a writer create truly realistic period-appropriate language, or represent how difficult a "modern accent" would be for people to understand a few hundred years ago. People are not aware of how many words, idiomatic expressions, connotations and sounds have been invented, or disappeared, or altered. In Jane Austen's time, the word "nice" meant something like "fastidious" and to use it to mean "sweet and pleasant" the way we do now was considered vulgar slang. Her characters discuss it in one of her books. I forget which one. Maybe Northanger Abbey. I would have to look, and I'm too lazy.

I'm also too lazy to write a time travel book with a creative attempt at good dialects. I think Russell Hoban comes as close as anyone could to doing really well at this kind of thing with his invention of a future speech in Riddley Walker. But again, that's not about time travel; it's just the sign of a good enough writer to do what I'm talking about. Did you hear that, Russell Hoban?! Write a time travel book with good dialect, please!

My absolute favourite in time travel (not that I've read many, because of the romance problem) is "The Mirror", by Marlys Millhiser. It's very cleverly made, you learn a lot about the two eras that are switched, and I felt very interested in the characters.

Ophelia, I got this book at the library yesterday afternoon and I read it on and off last night, basically not getting much sleep. (Don't feel concerned about this; I'm on call this weekend and I never get uninterrupted sleep then, even if the pager doesn't go off very much, just because I usually can't relax undefended from the possibility that it might go off).

I also enjoyed this book and I think Millhiser does a good job of considering a lot of the things I mentioned in the post above about the difficulties of language and cultural barriers in time travel books.

One really cool aspect of fantasy for me is considering what truth it is discussing and how well. In this book, the oppression and discounting of women's self-expressed experiences and perspectives by families, even by the other women in them, seems to be what is shown. Both of the women who trade places and many of the other women around them are considered either crazy or somehow wrong morally or intellectually; even when they are absolutely telling the truth they are marginalized unfairly. It kind of reminds me in this respect of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," which was read as a ghost or horror story for years before people started noticing it was also a social history of a real exerience of women's oppression in isolation and the dawning of our understanding that this has also happened to other women and is a social, not individual "malady."

The questions: how would I look differently at my mother if she were my daughter and how would I look differently at my daughter if she were my mother, and variations on these questions are actually kind of illuminating. Also shown is the truth that some features of progressiveness or open/closed mindedness that we associate with cumulative increase over generations are actually also individual and can go backwards and forwards over time. My great-grandmother (mother's maternal grandmother) divorced my great-grandfather. Yet in between her generation and mine a family myth that marriage should last for a lifetime and does if you have good character and a good family was reinstated and reinforced so that I did not learn of her divorce until after mine. Who knows, maybe I was she?

Time travel:

Sorry it's taken me a while to get back to this thread.

My best suggestion, after "The Mirror", is "Black Water" by T J MacGregor.
It's rather light reading, but I find it very pleasant. The time travelling is between Florida in the 1990's and the 1960's. I like the 60's, so I was happy to play along. It's cleverly done , and there are a whole range of interesting characters, including a sheriff from the 60's.
One small thing I remember is that the character could not use her money because dollars from the 60's are different from those of the 90's. This surprised me. I thought a dollar bill was always the same.
The psychology of the villain was well done too: interesting twisted mind.
I've read other books by this author, they're entertaining, but this is the best I've read from her.www.amazon.com/Black-Water-Tango-Key-Mysteries/dp/0786015578


The next book is a good effort: "Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis.
From 2048 to 14th century England.

http://www.amazon.com/Doomsday-Book-Connie-Willis/dp/0553562738

And then, for light reading, there is "Timeline" by Michael Crichton.
I no longer have that book, my memory of it is something like "Hollywood goes to Medieval France".www.amazon.com/Timeline-Michael-Crichton/dp/0679444815.

GR, you mentioned that you would love to see authors using the language of the time. Well, it has been done, but to my knowledge only once, and in French. The book is a historical novel (or rather 13 of them):

"Fortune de France", by Robert Merle. The first one in the series is excellent, it takes you to 16th century France in the Perigord.
Merle managed the extraordinary feat of writing novels that sounded convincingly like the language of the time, and yet were not hard to read for twentieth century readers. The books were an immense success in France, and... have not been translated into English.
It also tells you about the religious wars of the 16th century in a way that you can understand, which is a nice bonus, given the complexity of the subject.
Well, this was just in case-- I remember that you write very good French, so I thought I'd mention it.

Ophelia,

Thanks for the vote of confidence about my ability to read a novel with archaic as well as contemporary French! Luckily I do have both the modern and old French dictionaries from my own ancient past as a grad. student. I will have to figure out how to get a copy of the text by Merle, though. Maybe my Parisian exchange student "sister" from high school would find me a copy if I asked. Since it's just one book, she might not mind bringing it when she visits my parents next and having them send it from there. Maybe there's a book she is looking for that I could get for her in return.

I can look up the others at the public library.

I've had some busy times recently, but I will try to start in on at least one of these soon!

Thanks for your patience.

Well, I got the book in from the library.

I'll see how much I can read of it.

If we're going to do it here, I'll make time for it.

Gentle Reader wrote:

I will have to figure out how to get a copy of the text by Merle, though. Maybe my Parisian exchange student "sister" from high school would find me a copy if I asked. Since it's just one book, she might not mind bringing it when she visits my parents next and having them send it from there.

Or failing that, you could order it from amazon.fr


Carly, are we talking about the same book"Fortune de France", that you got from the library? Are you reading it in English? I was wondering if it had been translated.