Some books defy reviews and Forever Amber, written by Kathleen Winsor in 1944, is one of them. Should you read it? Darned if I know. There’s a lot of toxic crap in it, and it features an amoral anti-heroine. There’s also great historical detail, and I cannot tell a lie, I tore through this book as though it was a bag of Cheetos, in that I knew it was bad for me but I couldn’t … Continue reading Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor
Previously: Jamie has left Claire to go see a man about a murder, and Claire realized she was super close to Craig Na Dun, and in her attempt to get home, she gets snatched by red coats, who then bring her to Black Jack Randall. Jamie shows up and there’s a 7 month long stand off. Now: Jamie does the voice over- pondering how he has lived his life up to this point, what choices … Continue reading Outlander Episode 9: The Reckoning
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We switch a lot between 1743 and 1945, checking in with Frank and how he’s handling this disappearance of his wife. Basically: about as well as you’d expect. It’s been six weeks, he’s a familiar face to the Inverness police, and they keep telling him that it’s plainly obvious that Claire has run off with this Highlander dude he saw that one night. So go home, get drunk, and move on. He’s been staying with … Continue reading Outlander Episode 8: Both Sides Now
SEX WILL HAPPEN Clarie and Frank and Claire’s AMAZING suit are walking down a street in London, ostensibly to go have lunch with his parents in a “meet the girlfriend” scheme, but instead he asks that they stop by the Registrar’s Office to get married and have them just meet the wife, instead. Claire kisses him, and suddenly is dropped into the….present…? (past? her present? my head hurts) in Scotland, where she has just married … Continue reading Outlander Episode 6: The Wedding
Before we begin this week's summary & commentary, WOULD YOU LIKE A KNITTING PATTERN? Of course you would! Elyse has devised a knitting pattern to help you create your own cowl much like Claire's. Enjoy! Claire and her adorable fur trimmed coat (WANT) head off with the boys to collect rent, where she makes the acquaintance of the Mackenzie lawyer, Ned Gowan, who admits to having a taste for adventure, which is how he gave … Continue reading Outlander Episode 5: Rent
We open with guards in the woods, and Claire running (and an unfortunate shot of the actress’s warm up boots, and not the boots meant to be seen, much to the ETERNAL DISMAY of Terry.) But instead of escape, Claire is playing with the children, but also scouting out the terrain around the castle for her planned escape. As escape plans go, it’s fairly clever, she’s also working at being annoying to her guard/escorts so … Continue reading Outlander Episode 4: The Gathering
This episode opens with a lovely beat of Frank and Claire saying good bye at the train station during the war when Claire goes off to the field hospital in France, then segues into a sequence where Claire reveals to Mrs. Fitz that “seems to have dropped through time.” Mrs. Fitz takes this exactly as well as you’d expect, calls Claire a witch, the book readers have a collective aneurysm, and it’s revealed to be … Continue reading Outlander Episode 3: The Way Out
Things happen. There’s Scottishness. Quick recap: Claire and Jamie and the rest of Dougal’s men arrive in Castle Leoch after two days of hard riding. Claire gets supplies from Mrs. Fitzgibbons, the housekeeper and real power within the walls of the castle, and bandages Jamie’s various wounds. His back is horribly scarred from being flogged by the British, and he tells her the story of why he was arrested and how he met Black Jack … Continue reading Outlander Episode 2: Castle Leoch
As Carrie mentioned from her travels to San Diego Comic Con, the SBTB posse will be doing recaps and commentary of the highly publicized Outlander Starz series. Seriously, I've seen ads for it everywhere. Last time I checked, the first episode is free over at the Starz website. Every Friday, we'll post up our comments for the week's previous episode in preparation for the next one, giving the Bitchery almost a week to watch it … Continue reading Outlander Episode One
It’s that time of year again! The RITA® Reader Challenge. This year, you’ll notice the RITA awards look a little bit different, as in the buttload of historicals, contemporaries, and paranormal romances. So we figured we’d change up the Reader Challenge a little bit to make the process less chaotic and more fun for the SBTB community! Basics: There are 9 different reading deadlines, spanning every ten days. For example, the first reading deadline consists … Continue reading Announcing the RITA Reader Challenge 2014!
A few weeks back, Sue emailed me to ask if I'd discovered a wonderful anime called Emma: A Victorian Romance. I hadn't seen it before, so Sue was kind enough to write a guest review of what she loved about it, and what she found troublesome. Sue's examination includes some plot points from the series as a whole, and examines elements of the story that might bug the hell out of you, but also discusses why she … Continue reading Emma: A Victorian Romance – A Guest Review by Sue
