NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The fifth book in Diana Gabaldon’s acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series.
“A grand adventure written on a canvas that probes the heart, weighs the soul and measures the human spirit across [centuries].”—CNN
The year is 1771, and war is coming. Jamie Fraser’s wife tells him so. Little as he wishes to, he must believe it, for hers is a gift of dreadful prophecy—a time-traveler’s certain knowledge.
Born in the year of Our Lord 1918, Claire Randall served England as a nurse on the battlefields of World War II, and in the aftermath of peace found fresh conflicts when she walked through a cleftstone on the Scottish Highlands and found herself an outlander, an English lady in a place where no lady should be, in a time—1743—when the only English in Scotland were the officers and men of King George’s army.
Now wife, mother, and surgeon, Claire is still an outlander, out of place, and out of time, but now, by choice, linked by love to her only anchor—Jamie Fraser. Her unique view of the future has brought him both danger and deliverance in the past; her knowledge of the oncoming revolution is a flickering torch that may light his way through the perilous years ahead—or ignite a conflagration that will leave their lives in ashes.
This was another solid entry in this series, though I think this is the first one I’ve read that hasn’t reduced me to a blubbering mess at one point or another. However, the lack of extreme emotion doesn’t take anything away from the story. It seems that life has fallen into a sort of routine (if anything in Jamie and Claire’s lives could ever be considered “routine”), with the specter of the Revolutionary War looming in the distance. The return of a beloved character at the end is a nice touch and an old mystery is revealed.
I think the last paragraph really sums up the feeling of this entire series, so far.
“When the day shall come, that we do part,” he said softly, and turned to look at me, “if my last words are not ‘I love you’ — ye’ll ken it was because I didna have time.”
