Diana Gabaldon's An Echo in the Bone (Outlander Book 7)

This was such a refreshing book to read. Although book 6 (A Breath of Snow and Ashes) was so much better than book 5 (The Fiery Cross), this one was even more satisfying. Where book 6 set up the many branching patterns of dominoes, An Echo in the Bone served to knock many of them down with just a few branches left over to be knocked down in later books.

As always, continue on at your own risk if you have not yet read this book.




Here we are, after the reported "deaths" of Jamie and Claire, with Roger and Brianna and their kiddos safely back in the 20th century. We know now that the residents of Fraser's Ridge are not to be counted on in case of turmoil, with the exception of Bobby Higgins and his new-found family, and with nothing left to lose, our main couple decide to hightail it out of there and head back to Scotland. Of course, in true Gabaldon style, it can't be that simple.

This book serves to introduce us to both sides of the American Revolution. We finally see through the eyes of William Ransom, find out a bit about his life since Jamie was forced out of his life, and follow him as he struggles to balance his loyalty to King and country with the firsthand experience he acquires interacting with "dangerous rebels" and "savages." It is a beautiful thing to witness Jamie's son become so much like him.

I thoroughly enjoyed seeing situations from the perspective of Lord John as well. One of my favorite characters, I was happily surprised to see his rise to first-person viewpoint in this book. Although I found some of the narrative involving Lord John would have been more easily understood had I read some of his standalone novels and novellas, his additional voice was still enjoyable.

Very few loose ends were left at the end of this book, though one of our beloved people is left in harm's way. I could have done with less marching, battle, and army camps, but overall I was satisfied with the depth and breadth this novel encompassed. Gabaldon gives us more romance, including renewed heat between Jamie and Claire, enough action to keep things rolling, and some new blood that makes me excited for book 8, and dread the wait for book 9.

• Series: Book 7 of 8 (so far)
• Number of pages: 1149 (Mass market paperback edition)
• Year published: 2009
• Days to read: 8 days 

Diana Gabaldon's A Breath of Snow and Ashes (Outlander Book 6)

As before, if you haven't read the book, don't read this review unless you want to be spoiled. Warning ends.

This installment was almost as long as the last one, but didn't feel nearly as much of a chore to read. Although Gabaldon is still incredibly wordy, and her descriptions don't always give a clearer picture, I was happy to find that some of the loose ends from previous books were tied up. Some were much too late in coming, so much so that when they happen it's anticlimactic. Other endings were actually quite satisfying, and one in particular was surprising.

The action in this book was much more evenly paced, although the timing was not. We would read about several days in a row with one set of characters, then jump months ahead in time and follow another set of people. It was jarring at times, but I'd rather it jar than bore as in the previous book. The Fraser/Mackenzie clan gets in so much trouble and encounter so many perils that at this point I feel no drama. 

This book feels like it's setting up an end. It may not be in the next book, but I feel that these story lines need to finish up or else they will have no meaning. At some point, Gabaldon needs to come up with a moral to the story, give them all a pony ride into the sunset, and let us readers move on to another series. Jamie is tired of fighting, and I can sympathize. 

• Series: Book 6 of 8 (so far)
• Number of pages: 1438 (Mass market paperback edition)
• Year published: 2005
• Days to read: 18 days (with a 7-day trip to see the total solar eclipse in Missouri)

Diana Gabaldon's The Fiery Cross (Outlander Book 5)

I couldn't get the damn HTML spoiler button to work this time. God knows why. This is your warning.

 So... whoa. That was a long book. It seemed even longer, I think, because of the lack of a central story line. At all. It was 400 pages more than the previous installment, but even so I feel that I was hampered by a piece-wise method of storytelling. It took me over two weeks to finish it with no outside interference that limited the time I could commit to reading. I found myself putting it down after just a few pages, several times a day, because Gabaldon would tell me about one scene, and then the next would spring forth from some unrelated mind.

 That said, I enjoyed most pieces of story individually. A lot happened in this book. SPOILERS ENSUE!

We see Jocasta and Duncan's wedding, for a long time it seems, along with so many small happenings that seem quite unrelated. Lots of time spent on the Ridge, with odd visitors, deaths and births, Adso the kitten, and quite a few episodes describing rustic farm life. Then the whole militia vs. regulators story line, which is important in the long term, I'm sure, but was my least favorite tangent.

New tenants, government officers, old acquaintances, old enemies, and a whole slew of other people were introduced. I felt like I needed to write down all of the people because she would refer back to someone and it would take a bit of context before the light over my head came on. There were still a few lovely tender moments shared between Jamie and Claire, and Brianna and Roger, but they were so far between that this was definitely less of a romance and more historical fiction.

The overarching story is discernible now that I've finished, but so much was lost in the minutiae that I feel a bit frazzled. Still enjoyable, but I'm happy to move on to book 6.

• Series: Book 5 of 8 (so far)
• Number of pages: 1443 (Mass market paperback edition)
• Year published: 2001
• Days to read: 17 days

Diana Gabaldon's Drums of Autumn (Outlander Book 4)

This was definitely my favorite installment so far. 

As always, don't read unless you've finished the book or want to be slightly spoiled (I'll try to keep it to a minimum).

Here continues the story of Claire and Jamie Fraser, tossed into the wilds of 1760s America. As a parallel story, we also hear from Brianna, Claire and Jamie's grown daughter living in late 1960s Boston, and her bashful beau Roger Wakefield. Normally I don't like the addition of more points of view in a series that was originally from a single viewpoint, but I feel that expanding this universe was worth any confusion. Gabaldon is very clear at the start of the chapter whose viewpoint we're following, and since most of what Jamie and Claire are doing is less than exciting (e.g. travel, building a house, waiting...) it provides a pleasant interlude to follow Brianna and Roger for a while. 

Like the books before, there are sensual moments interrupted by volatile circumstances, misunderstandings resolved in touching sentimental scenes, violence that, I believe, realistically portrays what our characters would be going through in this time frame. This book, more than the previous installments of the series, led us through the continuation of the story smoothly and seamlessly, without any of the slapstick (and somewhat insulting) comedic happenings of the previous book. 

• Series: Book 4 of 8 (so far)
• Number of pages: 1070 (Mass market paperback edition)
• Year published: 1997
• Days to read: 9 days (only because of a family trip during this time, lol)

Diana Gabaldon's Voyager (Outlander Book 3)

As before, if you haven't finished book 2, you might want to turn back.

Warning ends.

 I'm finding it more and more difficult to review the books in this series without giving away anything, so here goes my first foray into using HTML to hide my spoilerific comments from you poor souls who haven't yet read the book.

 I truly enjoyed the first half of this novel. It flew by in less than 48 hours. It seemed effortless, much like most of the rest of the series so far.

Once Claire finds out that Jamie is a smuggler and hides his business dealings using his print shop and a brothel, things kind of go downhill from there.

In the second half, hijinks ensue, problems arise, Claire never stays put like she's supposed to... in short, I felt very much like I was watching a mixture of Gilligan's Island, the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and one of those middle-of-the-night telenovelas on Mexican TV. Still with the characters I've grown to love and that increasingly adorable wordplay between Jamie and Claire.

 Although this third installment of the Outlander series was quite different from the first two, the characters remain endearing, the story continues, and I gladly travel on to book 4 to find out what new devils (real and imagined) plague Jamie and Claire's happily ever after, while I do wonder at what point the story ends.

• Series: Book 3 of 8 (so far)
• Number of pages: 870 (Trade paperback edition)
• Year published: 1994
• Days to read: 6 days

Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs

Book 4 of the Mercy Thompson series was a redemption for me. It was so much more cohesive than book 3, and although it wasn't completely clear who the enemy would be, at the end it was more rewarding than any of the previous books in the series.

This installment had a very Butcher-esque feel to it: between the vampires who hate Mercy, the fae who can't be trusted, and the werewolves who owe her their allegiance even though some of them shun Mercy for being less than them, our poor protagonist is pulled in so many directions. This book solves at least two minor plot lines, one temporarily, the other maybe longer-term, and comes to a conclusion that is satisfying and sensible. Thank goodness for Bone Crossed; because of it, I may continue reading the series.

• Series: book 4 of 10 (so far)
• Number of pages: 287 (mass market paperback)
• Year published: 2009
• Days to read: 2 days

Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs

I read this, book 3 of the Mercy Thompson series, as a filler, something to tide me over until the next Diana Gabaldon book comes on Monday. So maybe you'll want to take my review with a grain of salt; it's tough going from an epic historical fantasy to something more simple and young-adultish. Not that I don't like this series. It's light, straightforward, and features a love triangle between a pretty normal girl and two powerful werewolves. I'm just saying that it was jarring.

On to the review. Like I said, this is book 3 of the series. I'll go back and review the first two another time; I really like to get these written directly after reading. Since it's been several weeks since I started the series, I think it wouldn't be fair to review books 1 and 2 until I re-read them. And I would recommend you read them also before continuing with this review.

Once again, Mercedes gets herself into a situation that is more than she can really handle. This time, it's a series of murders that the fae ask her to help investigate until they decide that she knows too much, and then they tell her to leave it to them.

You ever walk into a college lecture about something you have no knowledge of? Like, medieval poetry or advanced calculus? And even though you know the professor knows what he's talking about, and what he's saying makes perfect sense to him, you're left floundering to connect any dots to create meaning from the English words he's speaking but that you don't comprehend? Yeah, that's kind of where I existed in this book. Surprising that 280 pages can be so confusing. Although I think I got the general idea, I couldn't help but feel like I was missing something while reading this book, like Briggs had assigned supplementary reading and I missed that email. It really felt as if she had more to say in this story but she ran out of time. If she had given the manuscript to another few beta readers who could point out those odd little holes where more filling was needed, it could have been a very interesting story. It certainly wasn't bad enough to make me stop reading the series, because I still want to find out what happens next to Mercy and her little band of werewolves, but I was sorely disappointed in this book. Here's hoping book 4 brings us back to Briggs' fast-paced, but fully fleshed-out, realistic storytelling.

• Series: book 3 of 10 (so far)
• Number of pages: 287 (paperback mass-market edition)
• Year published: 2008
• Days to read: 2 days

Diana Gabaldon's Dragonfly in Amber (Outlander Book 2)

If you haven't finished book 1, you may want to stop reading this review. I can't guarantee that my ramblings won't have any spoilers.



You've been warned.


So, if I thought I could use a better grasp of the pertinent history for book one, I definitely needed it for book two. I took a look at the Wikipedia page for Bonnie Prince Charlie, and I think it gave me enough background information to have a better understanding of what was going on during this book. I highly recommend it if, like me, Western Civilizations class was over 20 years ago and you haven't been spending your time reading history textbooks.

So with that out of the way, I'd say that I enjoyed reading this book because at least now Jamie and Claire know where each other stands. Book one was much about Claire coming to terms with her new reality and deciding to invest herself in it. In this book, Claire is asking the question, "Can I change anything?" Like so many time-traveling stories, we have to figure out if Claire can, in fact, change history; if she was always meant to go back and be a part of history; or if, in the most frustrating circumstance, she is merely playing a part that someone else would have otherwise played, and nothing she does can change a damn thing.

Reading the first chapter or two of this book was unbelievably difficult for me. I truly thought that I had missed a volume. Get past that and you'll be rewarded with the continuing story of Claire Fraser making her way incongruously through mid-18th century Europe, with its political knots, illogical rules of decorum, and hopelessly dirty medical facilities. There are still points of loss, love, humor, and hatred, which made this book a page-turner for me!

• Series: Book 2 of 8 (so far)
• Number of pages: 947 (first paperback edition)
• Year published: 1992
• Days to read: 7 days

Diana Gabaldon's Outlander

This is book one of a series that has been turned into a TV show. That's one of the reasons I picked it up - I'm a sucker for books that have movies or shows made out of them. I like to pick apart the differences, see how capitalists twist and bastardize great stories in order to make more money out of them. I'll let you know what I think once I finish the books and start in on the TV series.

I have to say first that this isn't my usual genre. Although it had its fair share of the mystical and mysterious, it is by and large a work of historical fiction. I hated history classes in high school, but good Lordy, after reading this book I'm thinking about reading up on mid-18th century European history. Gabaldon does a beautiful job of working fair bits of dry history into what is otherwise an alluring love story, and manages to intersperse a bit of a whodunnit as well.

Although the descriptions of flora and fauna found in both past and present can get a bit tiresome, most of Gabaldon's details serve to create a realistic framework from which to draw a greater appreciation of the settings. Her characters' voices are real and distinct; I could almost hear the voices from Braveheart coming from the Scottish clansmen Claire finds herself surrounded by. Claire's struggles are realistic and got my heart pounding more than once. So are Jamie's, although he does seem to get himself into trouble more often than is strictly necessary. If there is one overarching criticism that I have regarding this book, it's that there seem to have been a few too many out-of-the-frying-pan, into-the-fire episodes. Strife and difficulty is indispensable in a great novel, but this one left me a bit fatigued by the conclusion.

Highly recommended! A surprisingly smooth and easy read considering the content and length!

• Series: Book 1 of 8 (so far, as of June 2017)
• Number of pages: 850 (Mass market edition)
• Year published: 1991 
• Days to read: 8 days