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If you’re as obsessed with the adventures of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series as I am, then you’re bound to be craving some romantic and adventurous readalikes to tide you over once you’ve finished reading (or rereading) the series, and during the days when the show is off the air. Here are eight recommendations for more romances with similar characters and themes that you’ll love if you can’t get enough of Jamie and Claire.
The Red Tent, by Anita Diamant
A revisionist history of a Biblical character, Dinah, the sole daughter of Jacob. Dinah grows up in the red tent, the sacred space for women in their community, surrounded by the love and protection of her four mothers, Jacob’s wives. But when she meets a man and quickly falls in love, everything changes.
In Bed with a Highlander, by Maya Banks
The start to Maya Banks’ McCabe Trilogy is full of swoonworthy scenes between Mairin, the bastard daughter of the King, and Ewan, the eldest brother in a Highland clan. Forced into marriage by extenuating circumstances—people trying to seize Mairin’s father’s throne are attempting to use her dowry to do it—Ewan promises to keep Mairin safe if they marry, which would allow him to use her father’s dowry to save his clan. What starts as a marriage of convenience blossoms into love!
The Devil in Winter, by Lisa Kleypas
In one of my favorite all-time romances, Evangeline (aka Evie) Jenner, the shyest of the four Wallflower siblings, approaches notorious rake (aka devilishly handsome and morally unscrupulous) Sebastian with a unique proposal: marry her and take her dowry (which he needs) to protect her from her money-grubbing relatives that want to marry her to keep the cash in the family. One catch: he must expect nothing romantic from her in return. St. Vincent is a romantic hero for the ages: protective and possessive, yet his growing compassion for Evie is what makes me love him the most. A must read!
The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
Henry DeTamble has a unique condition: he can time travel, not at will, to moments in his past and future that had some impact on his life. The problem? Henry doesn’t always understand “why” he’s traveling to that moment, if he hasn’t lived it yet in the present. So when he meets the charming and effervescent Clare Abshire at twenty-eight years old and she insists she’s known him since childhood, and even better, he’s the love of her life, the most epic love story (possibly of all time) ensues. Watch Clare and Henry fall in love from beginning to end (or middle to beginning to end, if you really think about it) and fall in love with them yourself.
Sisi: Empress on Her Own, by Allison Pataki
Sisi, the infamous Empress of Austria, is one of my all-time favorite historical characters. (I’ve even seen the musical based on her life!) Married young to the Emperor and totally unaware of the pressures and obligations of royal life, free-spirit Sisi struggles with the loss of her power and privacy amidst the lush background of the gilded Hapsburg Court. Having secluded herself from society and grown restless for true love with another man, Sisi is eventually drawn back to court by tragedy—tragedy that will follow her for the rest of her life, and make her name live on forever.
Beyond the Highland Mist, by Karen Marie Moning
A heroine forced out of her own time and thrust back to medieval Scotland and a laird with the cunning and devotion to tempt her to become his own—this may be the Highlander romance series to take them all, full of tension and romance that will make you shiver and swoon! Adrienne has sworn off beautiful men, but when she meets the gorgeously rough-around-the-edges Hawk, that is destined to change.
Brooklyn, by Colm Tóibín
The book upon which the Oscar-award nominated movie was based, Brooklyn tells the story of Ellis Lacey, who leaves her entire life in post World-War II Ireland behind to move to Brooklyn. Constantly torn between home and her heart, Ellis (like Claire, in Outlander) eventually finds herself also torn between two men: Tony, the Italian boy she’s fallen for in her new life, and Jim, a pub-owner in Ireland with whom she connects on a visit home.
Finding Fraser, by KC Dyer
Finally, if you’ve ever wanted your very own Jamie Fraser, you’re not alone. So does the main character in the romantic and sweet Finding Fraser, in which Emma Sheridan abandons her life to move to Scotland and find her very own romantic hero—one who hopefully lives up to the man she’s idolized in books for years, and less like the lame guys she’s dated IRL. Longtime Outlander fans will find lots of adorable throwbacks to the books in this novel, and there’s even a cameo from author Diana Gabaldon herself.
What books would you recommend for Outlander fans?
