Monday, May 9, 2016

Finding Fraser, by KC Dyer

Berkley Publishing Group, ISBN 9780399584374, May 2016

Emma Sheridan is twenty-five, divorced, and survivor of an overall badly failed love life. She's also just been fired from her job as a barista at a Chicago Starbucks. She also has a sister is more than prepared to tell Emma exactly what's wrong with every decision and choice she's ever made in her life.

But Emma has a plan. She's sold all her possessions, cashed in all her savings, and is going to Scotland to look for her very own Jamie Fraser. For the one or two people out there who may not know, Jamie Fraser is the male romantic lead in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander time travel romance series. And she's going to blog about her adventures.

Emma is a smart, capable young woman who is willing to work hard, and she makes some incredibly dumb decisions. I don't mean just romantic decisions, although some of her decisions she makes after meeting Hamish make me want to shake some self-respect into her.

She makes an utter fool of herself when she has a chance to meet Diana Gabaldon in Philadelphia on her way to NYC to catch her plane to Scotland. Something else happens in Philly that, if I said what I want to say, it would be a spoiler. She gets taken by a transparently obvious con artist.

And there is the awkward issue of how much she is willing to compromise and wear blinders to let herself go on believing that Hamish is her personal Scottish warrior.

And yet she's friendly, likable, no shrinking violet, and willing to work hard to keep her adventure alive after events that should have brought it to an abrupt and ignominious end. She also does not let her superior, condescending pill of a sister undermine her confidence and determination.

Despite all my complaints about this book, Emma is hard not to like, and hard not to cheer for. A good light read.

I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.


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