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A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon


My rating: 3 of 5 stars
The colonies, early 1770's. The time-travelling assorted family members perform surgery, get abducted, survive scandals, and try to prepare for the war they know is coming from their history books.

It's a Gabaldon book; it's, oh, about 400 pages too long, and it's not actually a novel so much as a lot of novellas lined up, with a few threads brought together at the end (in a series of ridiculous coincidences, by the way). But these books are also hilarious in places, with a keen sense for the ridiculous. And Gabaldon has this rich, kinesthetic kind of writing, with a real gift for imagery. Also, Lord John still loves Jamie tragically and beautifully (get the man a boyfriend! Please!).

So basically I skimmed for fun bits of historical richness (Brianna figuring out how to lay water pipes with no metal) or interpersonal hilarity, and went really fast through the bits where someone's been abducted again, sigh. How does her editor let her get away with these monsters?

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