We had a surprise visitor into the shop today - Diana Gabaldon. She would be one of my favorite authors and I have followed her characters - Claire and Jamie - throughout their adventures over the last 17 years or so...
Cross Stitch was the first book in Diana's Outlander series, it was followed by Dragonfly In Amber, Voyager, The Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes and lastly - but I believe NOT the last - An Echo in the Bone...
From the first page in Cross Stitch I was transported into the lives of Claire and Jamie - theirs is an unlikely love story, set against a backdrop of Jacobite Scotland.
I remember standing in a bookshop around about 1992 reading these opening lines from Cross Stitch...
" People disappear all the time. Ask any policeman. Better yet, ask a journalist. Disappearances are bread and butter to journalists.
Young girls run away from home. Young children stray from their parents and are never seen again. Housewives reach the end of their tether and take the grocery money and a taxi to the station. International financiers change their names and vanish into the smoke of imported cigars.
Many of the lost will be found, eventually, dead or alive. Disapperances, after all have explanations.
Usually."
... and from that moment been hooked. Little did I know then that I would be reading the seventh book in 2009...
I must admit that I was excited at meeting the woman whose writing has kept me entertained all of those years. Diana was both charming and patient, posing for photos and signing copies of her series in the short time she was with us. And guess what? I have my own personally signed copy!!!!!!
Cross Stitch was the first book in Diana's Outlander series, it was followed by Dragonfly In Amber, Voyager, The Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes and lastly - but I believe NOT the last - An Echo in the Bone...
From the first page in Cross Stitch I was transported into the lives of Claire and Jamie - theirs is an unlikely love story, set against a backdrop of Jacobite Scotland.
I remember standing in a bookshop around about 1992 reading these opening lines from Cross Stitch...
" People disappear all the time. Ask any policeman. Better yet, ask a journalist. Disappearances are bread and butter to journalists.
Young girls run away from home. Young children stray from their parents and are never seen again. Housewives reach the end of their tether and take the grocery money and a taxi to the station. International financiers change their names and vanish into the smoke of imported cigars.
Many of the lost will be found, eventually, dead or alive. Disapperances, after all have explanations.
Usually."
... and from that moment been hooked. Little did I know then that I would be reading the seventh book in 2009...
I must admit that I was excited at meeting the woman whose writing has kept me entertained all of those years. Diana was both charming and patient, posing for photos and signing copies of her series in the short time she was with us. And guess what? I have my own personally signed copy!!!!!!
2 comments:
Oooh what a buzz!!! Good on you, Shaz! She does look like a charming lady, just as you describe her. Thanks to you, I've read and enjoyed a few of her books too.
Lucky lucky you to meet THE woman herself!!! Just wondering, would you be home on Saturday by any chance??? As in, early/lunchtime-ish??? Hopefully you will get this in time, but I'll try to call you beforehand ...
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