Diana Gabaldon
Go read Outlander. Give it at least 5 chapters. If you can put it down, you are a better person than I!
This woman's writing is amazing. She has 5 books in this series currently and more on the way. She takes several years to write each one, because of all the research that goes into them to make them as realistic and accurate as possible.
Here's the basic plot of the beginning of Outlander, the first book in the series:
Claire Randall is a British nurse in the 1940's. On her honeymoon in Scotland, she passes through a henge and somehow travels through time to the 1740's. Hijinks ensue and she's soon being chased by British dragoons, who assume she's a spy, and big brawny lickable Scottish Highlanders, who know she's a spy and want to keep an eye on her. To save her from the British, she is forced to marry a young Highlander named Jamie Fraser. She falls in love with him (never mind that she's already married two hundred years in the future) and they build a life through history.
It sounds almost silly and like a romance novel, but it is much more than that. Claire is *the* best heroine I have ever read (and I was an English major so I've read a LOT). She's smart, ballsy, not afraid of anything. She has medical knowledge so she becomes a healer and the descriptions of the various maladies in the eighteenth century can turn a stomach, but everything is told with the most tongue-in-cheek hilarious humor. And of course, many think she's a witch because of everything she knows (what's a germ?) and she's got to contend with that. Not to mention her hatred for pointed shoes and corsets, and her tendency to blurt out "Oh Jesus H Roosevelt Christ!" in front of a bunch of eighteenth century Catholics, as she tries to close a bullet hole or some such activity.
The sex scenes, good lord. I can't even begin to describe them. Funny, yes. Erotic, yes. Incredibly tender and full of the most unbelievable passion and dedication to each other. The best thing I've ever read, yes.
The beginning of Outlander takes a while to get going, but it's so worth it I can't even tell you. I envy anyone who starts reading these books, that they get to read about Claire and Jamie (and Brianna, and Roger, and Fergus....) for the first time.
Intrigued yet? Go read it!!!!!!!!!!!
