A wartime nurse on a second honeymoon in Scotland is transported from 1945 to 1743. As an English woman in Jacobite Scotland she needs to weave her way safely through the shifting allegiances of those around her as well as cope with the everyday violence and superstition of the time. She is forced into marriage with a young warrior where she proceeds to experience passion hitherto unknown. Eventually she must choose between the life she left behind and the life she has forged for herself in the ‘past’.
I had heard quite a few positive reviews of this book and being a bit of a fan of the time travel story line I had high hopes for Cross Stitch. Perhaps, after all I had heard, my expectations for this book were too high to ever have been met but I found the story to be a bit of a disappointment.
The writing itself is very good, if the pace a little slow (although for an epic novel that’s acceptable). Diana Gabaldon is obviously skilled in her craft. She gets across a lot of historical fact without resorting to info dumps and brings the period to life without forcing details into the story. She portrays the passion between the main characters extremely well. But somehow the story itself simply didn’t work for me.
I couldn’t relate to the main character. She just didn’t provoke any kind of sympathy from me. In fact in the first part of the book I came quite close to disliking her. And later on, while I didn’t find myself wishing her ill, neither did I particularly care what happened to her.
The time travel aspect was barely relevant to the story. (I think this might be where my greatest disappointment lies). Apart from a couple of half-hearted attempts to return ‘home’ and the occasional mention about how things were different in this time (which felt like an after thought to me) it played no role in the story. If, for example, the main character had been shipwrecked rather than a time traveller the story would have been essentially the same. There is such scope for exploration of societal differences and the problems of knowing the future in time travel I was disappointed not too see it exploited to its fullest potential.
To me great passages of the book were simply an excuse for the main characters to have sex. I have plenty of time for sex scenes, and these ones were particularly well written, but after a while I found myself rolling my eyes and skimming ahead as they came thick and fast on top of each other. (Pun not intended, honest).
If you like reading big, languid, epic historical romance then Cross Stitch is the book for you. If you are hoping for a time travel story, like I was, then look elsewhere.-Lynn
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