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wd: I haven't read The Outsider in ten years or so. Unlike other old favorites I've never felt compelled to read Rachel and Johnny's story dozens of times. Still, the book, though not necessary particular story points, stuck with me. Upon rereading what I was most struck by is that Williamson's style of writing is the antithesis of what I see in romance now. She doesn't tell the story as though she's racing a bullet; she takes her time, slowing to develop and enrich the characters, allowing the plot to rise, and respecting the reader enough to allow us to figure things out for ourselves. As I read, I wondered why well done is the exception in romance and not the rule?

hk: Talk about starting off a review with a bang... I agree this book provided a slow build-up and ended with a big payoff. Being more than halfway through the book without so much as a kiss passing between the hero and heroine is not the norm in today's romance novel world. Williamson's gentle nurturing of the bond between these people allowed me to invest in the characters. To cheer for them. At the same time, I did not read along thinking this was a "sweet" romance. The depth, passion and emotional involvement went well beyond sweet. And how refreshing it was to read a book where the sex scenes (as they were) flowed naturally from the storyline rather than feeling like publisher required add-ons.

Now, about your romance novels are usually not well done idea. I mulled this one over, discussed it on the It's Not Chick Porn! blog a few months ago. Thought about it. Mulled again. While I agree that many romances I've read over the last two years did not excite me and some were so limited and weak that they downright ticked me off, there were others that fell into the good to very good range. A few fell into the exceptional category. A few authors earned my "would buy whatever they wrote even if they wrote it on a napkin" designation. Now, I want all of the books I read to be exceptional. I know that probably isn't realistic but is the fact that many romances fall into the good or very good but not memorable - a phrase I still associate with the romance being well done - a bad thing? Maybe not. Maybe the genre, like others and most things in life, falls on a Bell Curve that is skewed by personal preferences. Seems to me, the goal then is to come across and stick to the ones at the very good/exceptional end.

Rachel, our heroine, is Plain. Since I grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the heart of Amish Country, Plain to me means Amish. Many of the ideas at work here, such as shunning family members who have abandoned the faith and accepting God's will even under the most devastating of circumstances without so much as a blip in the belief system, hit me as very recognizable because I grew up where I did.

wd: Are you-

hk: No, I am not Amish. Anyway, Williamson does not shy away from these strong religious overtones. As someone who tends to pick up very few inspirational romances, did the pervasiveness of this spiritual aspect affect your view of the novel or the heroine?

wd: Your Bell Curve theory actually supports my assertion that most romances are not well done. If a normal distribution could be applied here, and I'm not certain that it can as it's a standard for statistics and not art, then most releases are average, few are very good and few are very bad. I would be happier if that were the case, but I don't believe it is. The more likely distribution in romance skews to the poorly done side of the curve. Is that a bad thing? Yes! I love romance and as a passionate reader I want to believe time, effort and attention went into a work (by both author and publisher). When I crack open a book that is substandard, I feel disrespected, as if this genre I enjoy so much isn't worth the time to make good.

Reading Williamson fills me with the sense that the person who created the story, the world, the characters cares as much as I do.

Now to your question: I've never thought of The Outsider as an inspirational romance. As you point out, it is about a Plain woman, her people, way of life and her belief system, but unlike titles I do think of inspirational, there isn't a sense here of being preached to. There is a tremendous sense of morality to the piece -- calling the work a morality play, might be a bit much as Williamson is careful to stay away from rigidly defined realms of black or white, good or bad. Williamson shades her characters (all of them) so that no one is altogether one thing or another. Rachel follows the Plain way of life, yet indulges in a red silk pin cushion, and sends her son to public school. Johnny is a "man killer," a gunslinger, but he goes to church with Rachel, puts her safety and her son's before his own. Even the other member's of the Plain community are not immune or without warring factions inside them. The best example is Noah, the man Rachel repeated rejects who has feelings of covetous lust for her, and yet Noah is an elder in the Plain community, a deacon. It's this fluidity of character that makes them all sympathetic. Particularly Rachel and Johnny. While Rachel represents the good end of the spectrum (by Rachel's own standards) and Johnny the bad both have depth beyond easy labels and have to fight for a middle ground.

It's interesting to me that you brought up the sex (or lack thereof) because even though there isn't a lot of physical intimacy depicted, I find the story incredibly sexy. When Johnny tells Rachel he wants her (which happens three hundred-some pages into a five hundred-plus page book) my stomach plunges, the air rushes out of my lunges and I think it's for all its simplicity, it's the greatest line: I want to lie with you. How different would this story be if Rachel had seen Johnny as an immediate and convenient way to relieve a widow's loneliness or had Johnny instantly and miraculously recovered from a broken arm and bullet wound to lust after Rachel at every turn?

hk: This is the benefit of reading an older or non-erotic romance novel. Emotions develop over time and without an immediate rush to the bedroom. Waiting for the hero and heroine to find each requires an investment by the reader and a talent for creating tension and realistic plots by the author. The recent push for hotter and more sexually-dependent novels has led, at times, to a more instant gratification sort of romance novel where the growth in the romance is limited to the amount of time it takes for the parties to unroll a condom. The attraction is immediate and sexual. Clothes hit the floor keep hitting the floor with only smatterings of non-sexual plot mixed in. Now, not all newer romances fall into this category and many of the hotter romances do manage to make the sexual situations inherent to the plot, but the wham-bam nature is prevalent, sometimes even overwhelming.

The Outsider offers something different. Something pure but still very sexy. There is a gradual move together here. A sexual tension that builds over time in a way that stays true to who these people are. The alternate plotlines you reference, or a quick run to intimacy, would ruin the strengths of this book. More than likely, those would not even have been considerations when Williamson wrote this book. Certainly a fast and easy roll in the barn would have been questionable choice, especially in light of Rachel's religious beliefs. I do wonder, though, if this book could survive, get published and find an audience if it were published in today's more sexualized market. I'm not convinced the traits that make this book work are in favor these days.

Like with you, some of Johnny's understated, straightforward lines got me a little dizzy (in a good way). At heart, he is a good man. On the surface and in his mind, he is something else. The appeal of the wounded gunslinger with a heart of gold is endless. But how did Johnny hold up to your other favorite alpha males (such as Cash in Sandra Brown's Slow Heat in Heaven) in terms of his maleness, appeal and growth during the book?

wd: What a great question. The short answer is: He doesn't. The mere mention of Cash's name sends me scampering to the bookshelf to find Slow Heat in Heaven and reread the best parts. The same is true of all my favorite heroes, Phin Tucker from Welcome to Temptation, James Fraser from the Outlander series. I think a large part of the most memorable heroes' appeal for me -- besides the obvious swaggering sexuality -- is their dialog. What Cash says proves him to be a hard, cruel bastard (both of birth and personality). He tries to shock Schyler with his crudeness and the result is titillating. Phin's dialog is always full of subtext, whit and intelligence. And Jamie, well, what's not to like about a hero whose every other sentence is his undying love for the heroine?

Johnny, doesn't have a lot to say. Though as we've noted what he does say has impact. However, Williamson holds Johnny apart from her other characters. He is the least known of all of them, the only character for whom we're not privy to. Given that Johnny is the outsider in this universe, keeping him a largely unknown quantity is the right storytelling choice. I think that, by design, Johnny isn't intended to be an exalted favorite hero. This is, after all, Rachel's story and therefore the focus stays on her and the other Plain people which Williamson uses to further explain Rachel.

It's the use of the other Plain characters that's a bit of a stumbling block for me. Where the love story between Johnny and Rachel, and even Rachel's life path decisions, are so subtly rendered, the subplots are rather on-the-nose to me: Benjo's (Rachel's son) encounter with a wounded wolf that is obviously a metaphor for Johnny Cain's nature; Moses' (Noah's son) foray into to wicked world and subsequent choice to stay with the Plain way of life; and Quinten's (the evil rancher's son) twisted need and love for his father, that is proof that loving the wrong person is ruinous. All very heavy with a: can't change a person's nature theme. Did you find this heavy handed as well, or simply see these subplots as rounding out and supporting the main story?

hk: I have to admit that while I liked Johnny's when-I-say-something-it's-worth-saying style, I did wish there was a bit more to him. Yes, this is Rachel's story. The plotlines revolve around her. She is the centerpiece and her thoughts, needs and fears are the driving force here. However, Johnny's introduction is as near-dead, severely injured outlaw who stumbles on to Rachel's property and falls over. That start suggests a certain type of hero. Not that Johnny needed to wave a gun around on every other page, but the expectation in light of his background was for a larger than life hero. On that, Johnny fell short. He possessed all the sexiness and love for Rachel that I expect in a hero, but there always felt as if there was something missing. Some small spark that would have propelled him into unforgettable status.

And he is not alone. The secondary characters appear one-dimensional when compared to Rachel and the love story at work here. These other players, mostly men, lack the level of believability and interest I would expect form an epic tale such as this. Both Moses and Quinten fall too easily into comfortable stereotypes. Neither add a great deal to the ongoing storyline, even though Quinten's battle with his own conscience and his father's immoral behavior should have more umpf. Add in the alcoholic doctor and Noah, Rachel's rejected suitor, and you get several men running around doing very little. This gives rise to the temptation to skip over passages. That's never a good thing. Especially not when the building blocks are there to make many of these actors, specifically Moses and Quinten, well-rounded and integral players.

That leads me to the main secondary character - to the extent there is such a thing - Benjo. Rachel's stuttering, fearful, loyal, protective, lonely son. The men who killed his father have threatened him with the same end. He's in desperate need to a make role model who views his father's death as something other than God's will. Basically, he does not have an easy childhood. Does his presence amount to filler, a means to show Rachel character, or something more?

wd: I must admit that I don't see Quinten adding a lot to this story. His sections, for me, always felt like a deterrent from the main story. Moses, on the other, I have to disagree with you about. He is on a parallel path with Rachel, questioning the Plain life, his place in it and his God. Rachel's exposure to the outside, non-Plain world, is thrust upon her with first the murder of her husband and then the arrival of Johnny Cain. By contrast, Moses seeks out worldly pursuits. But, each grapple with the non-Plain world, suffer consequences for their contact, and then choose between the Plain life and an outsider's. Moses commits to the church, Rachel leaves the church. Because of this, I think Moses is vital and adds a great deal to the story.

Benjo...hmm, on top of everything else, I picked a book with a kid in it. Not like me at all, is it? Benjo is definitely a character that exists in the service of other characters and the story. He grounds Rachel in many ways. It would be unbelievable that she wouldn't have a child after so many years of marriage and in an age the lacked birth control to boot. Her son is a living breathing connection to Rachel's departed husband, the tragedy of the husband's death, and, again, given the time period, a very credible reason why Rachel should remarry. Benjo serves a purpose in further illuminating Johnny as well. It's with Benjo that Johnny most compassionate side first arises.

And too, Rachel's decision to leave the Plain life isn't an event with singular ramifications. The possibility exists that Benjo will goes up, make the adult decision to pledge his life to the Plain way, and like the rest of the community and Rachel's family, shun Rachel. Given how much Rachel clearly loved her life among the Plain (the solace she finds consistency, the security of acceptance, the oneness with god) how believable is it to you that she gave up her community and religion for Johnny?

hk: In a fictional world it works when, as here, the background for doubt played throughout the book. It is true a deep faith guides Rachel's life. She respects the religious teachings of her community and her elders. That being said, she does not fit comfortably into the role of blind follower. She questioned - albeit silently - those around her who chalked up her husband's murder to God's will and insisted that she do the same. One of Rachel's many appealing characteristics is her ability to separate out her strong beliefs from what she actually sees happening around her. That is not to say her faith is peripheral. Rather, it is very deep. In some ways, deeper than those who abandon her because of her willingness to question and examine. From the time she meets Johnny through her struggles with her husband's murder and the threats against her son Rachel grows and yearns and questions and believes. That growth adds new dimension to Rachel the character.

Now, in real life in light of financial burdens, limited education and a whole host of worldly problems, would Rachel survive and thrive after this decision? I'm not convinced she would. The hard truth is that a woman like Rachel in today's world, after a lifetime of a certain type of religious indoctrination and a certain manner of life, would face a drastic and possibly insurmountable battle. Maybe that's why, despite the success of moves like Witness, we do not see book after book of Amish/non-Amish romance. But, in The Outsider, it adds to the "love conquers all philosophy" of the romance genre, yet it is done in a way that stays true to the Rachel the readers know at the beginning of the book. No silly Plain woman-turned-whore metamorphosis happens here. Thank goodness.

hk & wd: So, with the religious themes, the slow-burn romance, the lack of graphic sex scenes and the significant length, where does a book like The Outsider stand today? We're not sure. The bottom line is that The Outsider offers something different, something slower and less reliant on the sexual aspects of the relationship, to build a romance. Is it a keeper? Well, for one of us it is. For the other, despite all the foot-dragging, it turned out to be a book worth reading.

You can purchase this book here and here.