Smile, it's Jamie Fraser time!

Have you ever wanted to read a particular book and couldn't wait to get it but, when you did, you almost didn't want to read it? That's how I feel right now.

The book in question is Diana Gabaldon's An Echo in the Bone -- the sixth novel in the Outlander series. I had ordered it from Amazon and here it sits, waiting. I'll finish the book I'm reading before I start but there's a part of me that just doesn't want to know how it all ends.

Oh, I know, Echo isn't the last one -- unless something has changed, there will be at least one more -- but, Lord knows, I don't know if I can take the demise of the series much less the possible demise of my all-time favorite character, Jamie Fraser. But how can I not read this one and then the next? Well, of course, I'll read them -- and I'll love them -- and they might even make me cry, though I'm not one who usually tears up when I'm reading novels.

I read a novel once called Olivia & Jai -- it became one of my favorites and one of those which I won't give away or put on Paperbackswap. But, then I read the sequel and I wished that I had never known of its existence. The writing was excellent but it took the story into an area I wish it had not. But, being someone who writes, I understand that the story is whatever the story is -- and if an author remains true to what's in her head, she's not going to change it to satisfy someone else's idea of happily ever after. Which the sequel to Olivia & Jai certainly was not.

Anyway, I guess that's what I'm a little afraid of with Echo -- and the one after -- that something I don't want to see happen will happen and will leave me with a bittersweet memory of the series as a whole. And I don't want bittersweet -- I want sweet.

On a lighter note, several years ago, when I was told that I had to read the Outlander series, I began collecting all of the books -- but they sat on my shelf for a long time before I finally decided I'd tackle the first one. I figured that what I'd do was read one, then read something else, then read the second one, etc. Wrong! Once I started, I could not stop -- I read all four books (which were published at that time) in a row and was quite pleased that I'd accomplished this just in time for what I thought was the last one (A Breath of Snow and Ash). Then I realized that Breath was not the last one after all -- that there would be one, probably two more. I remember thinking, back then, that I'd be fifty by the time the sixth one came out.

So, here I am, fifty, with Echo beckoning me to return to the world of Jamie and Claire.

I'm sure I'll forget my momentary hesitation immediately. Probably after the very first sentence.

Or when Jamie Fraser smiles.