Publisher's Hardcover ©1993 | -- |
Randall, Claire. (Fictitious character from Gabaldon). Fiction.
Time travel. Fiction.
Scotland. Fiction.
The third of Gabaldon's novels featuring the time-traveling heroine Claire Randall covers her reunion with her twentieth-century husband, the birth of her daughter by eighteenth-century Scots clansman Jamie Fraser, and her training as a doctor. In due course, she feels driven to essay time traveling again, but reunion with Jamie takes place on the eve of Culloden. The pair's subsequent flight for life takes them to the West Indies and, finally, to a hair-raising shipwreck in the American colonies that hints there may be a fourth volume of Claire's adventures. Gabaldon handles the time-travel elements competently but subordinates them to classic historical romance--a big one, luxuriantly detailed and featuring highly appealing characters and an authentic feel to the background that speaks well of her research and writing. Recommended wherever Outlander and A Dragonfly in Amber found an audience. (Reviewed Nov. 15, 1993)
Kirkus ReviewsThe third (Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber) in a time-travel trilogy that again creates a vivid sense of daily life in 18th- century Europe. Unlike its predecessors, however, Gabaldon's latest relies more on genre clichCs than on history for its drama. The story opens in 1746, on the battlefield of Culloden, where Scotland's dream of winning independence from England has just been brutally crushed. Our hero, gallant Highland laird Jamie Fraser, survives the battle and makes his way to a cave near his estate. There, he goes into hiding for several years, then turns himself in to the English to protect his near-starving dependents—and winds up in prison. Meanwhile, Claire Randall, the love of Jamie's life- -whom he had sent back through a charmed circle of stones to the safety of her passionless but companionable 20th-century marriage just before the battle began—is raising her and Jamie's daughter and working as a doctor in postwar England. Once their daughter is grown, Claire traces Jamie's fate through historical documents, realizes he survived Culloden, and steps back through the circle for the third and last time—to join him in 18th-century Scotland, 20 years after they parted. After a passionate reunion, they're soon on the run again from the English—and it's an eventful journey. While chasing a mysterious ship that kidnapped Jamie's nephew, the pair and their ragtag entourage dodge pirates, battle a witch, and survive saber slashes, gunshots, brushes with typhoid, and violent tropical storms at sea. Thanks to a string of Dickensian coincidences, they also encounter—or at least learn the fate of—all the principal characters from the first two books. Fans will savor this hefty tome's conscientious tying up of loose ends—but Claire's uncharacteristic passivity throughout and the book's overreliance on convention are unlikely to draw new readers. (First printing of 60,000; Literary Guild Dual Selection for February)"
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)In this triumphant conclusion to the time-travel trilogy she began with Outlander , Gabaldon continues the saga of 20th-century physician Claire Randall and 18th-century Jacobite rebel Jamie Fraser. The first quarter of this mammoth novel covers, in alternate sections, the 20 years the couple spends apart. Jamie is imprisoned, then pardoned and finally sets up shop as a (seditious) printer. Believing that Jamie died at Culloden, the pregnant Claire returns to her own century, reunites (unhappily) with her first husband and gives birth to a daughter, Brianna. But when Claire takes Brianna to Scotland in 1968 to introduce her to her true heritage, they uncover evidence that Jamie had survived. Claire determines she must rejoin him and once again steps fatefully through the stones on Craigh na Dun to find Jamie in Edinburgh in 1766. They wish nothing more than to lead a quiet life, but the kidnapping by pirates of Jamie's young nephew sets the couple off to the New World in pursuit, followed by old enemies and faced by new and vicious dangers. Gabaldon adroitly shepherds her protagonists through the eternal misunderstandings of the sexes, as well as those due to the different epochs in which they were born. Although this latest volume lacks some of the scope and grandeur of the previous two, her use of historical detail and a truly adult love story confirm Gabaldon as a superior writer of historical romance. Literary Guild main selection; author tour. (Jan.)
Library Journal
ALA Booklist (Mon Nov 01 00:00:00 CST 1993)
Kirkus Reviews
Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)
"Oh, it's not, aye? And Jenny worrying that ye'd make yourself ill, living without a woman so long!" Ian snorted. "I'll tell her she needna concern herself wi' your welfare. And where's my son, then, down the hall with another o' the harlots?"
"Your son?" Jamie's surprise was evident. "Which one?"
Ian stared at Jamie, the anger on his long, half-homely face fading into alarm.
"Ye havena got him? Wee Ian's not here?"
"Young Ian? Christ, man, d'ye think I'd bring a fourteen-year-old lad into a brothel?"
Ian opened his mouth, then shut it, and sat down on the stool.
"Tell ye the truth, Jamie, I canna say what ye'd do anymore," he said levelly. He looked up at his brother-in-law, jaw set. "Once I could. But not now."
"And what the hell d'ye mean by that?" I could see the angry flush rising in Jamie's face.
Ian glanced at the bed, and away again. The red flush didn't recede from Jamie's face, but I saw a small quiver at the corner of his mouth. He bowed elaborately to his brother-in-law.
"Your pardon, Ian, I was forgettin' my manners. Allow me to introduce ye to my companion." He stepped to the side of the bed and pulled back the quilts.
"No!" Ian cried, jumping to his feet and looking frantically at the floor, the wardrobe, anywhere but at the bed.
"What, will ye no give your regards to my wife, Ian?" Jamie said.
"Wife?" Forgetting to look away, Ian goggled at Jamie in horror. "Ye've marrit a whore?" he croaked.
"I wouldn't call it that, exactly," I said. Hearing my voice, Ian jerked his head in my direction.
"Hullo," I said, waving cheerily at him from my nest of bedclothes. "Been a long time, hasn't it?"
I'd always thought the descriptions of what people did when seeing ghosts rather exaggerated, but had been forced to revise my opinions in light of the responses I had been getting since my return to the past. Jamie had fainted dead away, and if Ian's hair was not literally standing on end, he assuredly looked as though he had been scared out of his wits.
Eyes bugging out, he opened and closed his mouth, making a small gobbling noise that seemed to entertain Jamie quite a lot.
"That'll teach ye to go about thinkin' the worst of my character," he said, with apparent satisfaction. Taking pity on his quivering brother-in-law, Jamie poured out a tot of brandy and handed him the glass. "Judge not, and ye'll no be judged, eh?"
I thought Ian was going to spill the drink on his breeches, but he managed to get the glass to his mouth and swallow.
"What—?" He wheezed, eyes watering as he stared at me. "How—?"
"It's a long story," I said, with a glance at Jamie. He nodded briefly. We had had other things to think about in the last twenty-four hours besides how to explain me to people, and under the circumstances, I rather thought explanations could wait.
"I don't believe I know Young Ian. Is he missing?" I asked politely.
Ian nodded mechanically, not taking his eyes off me.
"He stole away from home last Friday week," he said, sounding rather dazed. "Left a note that he'd gone to his uncle." He took another swig of brandy, coughed and blinked several times, then wiped his eyes and sat up straighter, looking at me.
"It'll no be the first time, ye see," he said to me. He seemed to be regaining his self-confidence, seeing that I appeared to be flesh and blood, and showed no signs either of getting out of bed or of putting my head under my arm and strolling round without it, in the accepted fashion of Highland ghosts.
Jamie sat down on the bed next to me, taking my hand in his.
"I've not seen Young Ian since I sent him home wi' Fergus six months ago," he said. He was beginning to look as worried as Ian. "You're sure he said he was coming to me?"
"Well, he hasna got any other uncles that I know of," Ian said, rather acerbically. He tossed back the rest of the brandy and set the cup down.
"Fergus?" I interrupted. "Is Fergus all right, then?" I felt a surge of joy at the mention of the French orphan whom Jamie had once hired in Paris as a pickpocket, and brought back to Scotland as a servant lad.
Distracted from his thoughts, Jamie looked down at me.
"Oh, aye, Fergus is a bonny man now. A bit changed, of course." A shadow seemed to cross his face, but it cleared as he smiled, pressing my hand. "He'll be fair daft at seein' you once more, Sassenach."
Uninterested in Fergus, Ian had risen and was pacing back and forth across the polished plank floor.
"He didna take a horse," he muttered. "So he'd have nothing anyone would rob him for." He swung round to Jamie. "How did ye come, last time ye brought the lad here? By the land round the Firth, or did ye cross by boat?"
Jamie rubbed his chin, frowning as he thought. "I didna come to Lallybroch for him. He and Fergus crossed through the Carryarrick Pass and met me just above Loch Laggan. Then we came down through Struan and Weem and ... aye, now I remember. We didna want to cross the Campbell lands, so we came to the east, and crossed the Forth at Donibristle."
"D'ye think he'd do that again?" Ian asked. "If it's the only way he knows?"
Jamie shook his head doubtfully. "He might. But he kens the coast is dangerous."
Excerpted from Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The third book in Diana Gabaldon’s acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series.
“Triumphant . . . Her use of historical detail and a truly adult love story confirm Gabaldon as a superior writer.”—Publishers Weekly
In this rich, vibrant tale, Diana Gabaldon continues the story of Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser that began with the now-classic novel Outlander and continued in Dragonfly in Amber. Sweeping us from the battlefields of eighteenth-century Scotland to the West Indies, Diana Gabaldon weaves magic once again in an exhilarating and utterly unforgettable novel.
He was dead. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances.
Jamie Fraser is, alas, not dead—but he is in hell. Waking among the fallen on Culloden Field, he is concerned neither for his men nor his wounds but for his wife and their unborn child. Lord, he prayed passionately, that she may be safe. She and the child. It’s a prayer he’ll utter many times over the next twenty years, never knowing but always hoping that Claire made it through the standing stones, back to the safety of her own time.
Safe she is, but believing Jamie gone forever, she’s obliged to live without a heart, her only comfort their daughter, Brianna. But now, their daughter grown, she discovers that Jamie survived, and a fateful decision lies before her: Stay with her beloved daughter, or go back to search Scotland’s dangerous past for the man who was her heart and soul, sustained only by the hope that they will still know each other if she finds him.