Flight of Dreams by Ariel Lawhon

Title: Flight of Dreams
Author: Ariel Lawhon
Genre: Historical Fiction

Other books I have read by this author: The Wife, The Maid, and the Mistress

Synopsis: This story follows several people, both crew and passenger, and their experiences on the last flight of the Hindenburg. From take-off to disastrous landing, what might it have been like for those who were aboard the grand zeppelin? What really caused it to go up in flames?

My Thoughts

This was another recommendation loaned to me by a co-worker. Like the first book I read by this author, Lawhon uses multiple points of view to explore an infamous historical mystery; what happened on the Hindenburg to cause it to burst into flames? She uses detailed research to find facts to form the backbone of the story and then fills in the missing details with her fictional version of the character's experiences. The reader gets to experience the flight from the perspective of a stewardess, only female crew member ever on a Zepplin; a navigator, a teenaged cabin boy, a German journalist passenger, and a mysterious American passenger.
 In the author's note, Lawhon mentions that the characters were all real people who were on that flight and that she chose to keep their fates, whether they survived the explosion or not, true to history. I think that is such a cool choice, writing a fictional story knowing what happened to these real people in real life. I loved the mystery and the author's choice for her version of what caused the disaster.
Comment below if you have read this book or have suggestions for others like it!




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To see more from the author, visit the website linked above

Outlander by Diana Gabaldon

Title: Outlander
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Fiction, SciFi, Historical, Fantasy

Synopsis: World War II is finally over and army nurse Claire Randall is on her 'second honeymoon' in the Scottish Highlands with her husband, Frank. The two had been separated for much of the war. While exploring the stone circle Craigh na Dun for flowers alone, while Frank was searching for his ancestors with a local historian, Claire gets pulled back in time 200 years. Using what she learned from Frank about local history, survival skills learned from growing up with an archaeologist uncle, Claire has to navigate life in the 18th-century Highlands and try to get home to Frank. When she meets some Highlanders on the road her life changes forever.

My Thoughts

I am guilty of picking this book up, reading the back cover, and putting it back down on probably five separate visits to the bookstore. I would always think, 'time travel it is so far fetched!' Then, not realizing it was based on the book I kept rejecting, I started watching Outlander on Netflix because it popped up as a 'recommended for you' suggestion over and over. Well, I loved it. When I realized that it was that book series, having not committed the book title to memory, I knew I had to read it. 
Outlander season one stays very true to the first novel of the series. A few changes to make it fit better for TV make slight chronological differences, but the same main events occur. The novel is also told from Claire's perspective so anything that happens when she is not around isn't seen, but sometimes described later by other characters. Often, this makes some of the more gruesome scenes from the show less so in the book. In the show, they portray some scenes where Claire is not present as they happened, especially those concerning Jamie. 
I know I'm late to the game on this one, but seriously I cannot wait to read more from this series.
Comment below if you have read this book or have suggestions for others like it!




To buy this book from Amazon now, click on the image at the top of the post.
To see more from the author, visit the website linked above