unabashed love for the beta hero over the alpha every single time

F'nor not F'lar
Boromir not Aragorn
Shaggy not Fr--no, never mind.

But yes, I usually share your preference. And Jamie's super-ness may have been a contributing factor to my falling out of love with the series. I just...the reading of it became too hard work for the reward of pleasure gained. Too many books, too little time.

Shaggy not Fr--no, never mind.

that should read, "Velma, not Daphne"

Boromir not Aragorn

Cranky Elf (can never, ever remember his name) not Legolas
Chuck not Casey
Edward not Brandon

There's a lot to be said for it encouraging them to go out and find more books, too. When I briefly worked at a bookstore two years ago, the teen girls who came in couldn't get enough -- Twilight had whetted their appetite, and they were eager for anything even remotely like it.

When I worked at the bookstore it was the Harry Potter series that was doing this. The kids had read everything that had been written in the series up to that point, and they wanted anything they could get that was similar.

I think Harry Potter was responsible for a broader sample of people of all ages reading again, though. Twilight was pretty strictly teen girls (and their moms, although I think those moms were probably already romance readers).

Anything that gets anyone to read more is a good thing, which is why I hate when I hear parents in a bookstore telling their kids they can only read "good books", they should be working with their kid's interests, not against them.

I have never read any Gabaldon, but I may have to look into downloading one to my kindle. Is Outlander the first book in the series?

Has anyone read Masques or Wolfsbane by Patricia Briggs? Masques is her first published book that has recently been reprinted after being out of print for a while and Wolfsbane is the sequel that was just published for the first time. I recently finished the first and I am currently reading the second. I love them. I think I like Aralorn (the main character) as much as Mercy.

For all my scorn for the Twilight series, I have told Abby if she's interested in reading it, I will be more than happy to get her the books or take her to the library. So far, she's not shown any interest in it—mostly because the girls at her school who've read it and rave over it, rattle on at length about Team Jacob versus Team Edward, ad nauseum, and it drives her batty. She also said that Bella sounds like (in her words) a total drip.

She has read Alyxandra Harvey's Drake Chronicles and loves them, so she's definitely not anti-vampire.

Outlander is the first one.

I admit that, as much as I enjoyed the first one, I got bored by book 3 (that's the one where they go to America?) and gave up entirely when the boyfriend was mistaken for a rapist and Jamie arranged for him to be captured by Indians for a variety of reasons. Too much authorial puppetry for me.

Also, and I know this is blasphemy, but like J.D. Robb's stuff, there was too much sex. I got bored and started skimming.

All I know of Gabaldon is that she loathes fanficcers and based Jaime on a Doctor Who companion.