A fantastic novel that bends a few genres but should come with some trigger warnings!
5
By KThugs3
This book has been on my “want to read” list since about 2018 or so, when I heard how successful the television show had been. As a personal rule for myself, I cannot watch a show or movie that was first based on a novel until after I read the book. (And I’m always a bit disappointed when I see a movie & it says it was inspired by the book, because now I’ll have a general idea how the book ends and will picture the characters chosen for the series, even if that’s not an accurate description in the book, etc.) After all, there are two general facts when it comes to movies… 1.) The books are generally ALWAYS better than the TV shows/movies. 2.) The Sequel movie is never as good as the first.
Anyways, when I found out my mom had read up to the fifth book in the series (AND ABSOLUTELY LOVED THEM ALL) and I saw that all my friends who had read this book had given it 5 stars on Goodreads, I just knew that I had to bite the bullet and give it a read.
I knew that it would be a great story to read, even if it would be a bit “difficult” due to it taking place in two different time periods and the languages spoken in the earlier time period would potentially be difficult to understand.
I can honestly say that within just a few short pages, it had already caught my attention, and I knew I would love it. And I also knew within a few pages that I would definitely be building up my vocabulary because I had to bust out my dictionary A BUNCH! (While some may find reading a book filled with words they have never read or heard may make the author/characters sound pretentious, I always enjoy it because it’s a perfect opportunity for me to learn and build up my vocabulary.)
Now onto a short summary of the book…
The story starts during the year 1945, with an English woman named Claire, and her husband, Frank, in Scotland on a sort of honeymoon type vacation. Even though they had been married for seven years, they had been separated for quite a bit of time due to the war, and Claire being a nurse in the veterans hospital at the time. They were in Scotland, because they were learning about Franks ancestors, specifically a man named Randall, whom the history books did not say much about. While on this mini vacation, some sort of magic occurs where Claire is transported back in time, to the 1700’s. While Claire is disoriented and trying to figure out how to get back to the rocks that caused her to time travel, she is taken prisoner by none other than Randall himself. He was questioning who she was and from where, and had assumed she was an English spy when he heard her speak. Almost at that same time, a group of unruly Scot’s had suddenly gotten into a short fight with Randall, and Claire was once more kidnapped, and from that point forward, it was one adventure after another. Claire then had to make the difficult decision of going back to her husband, Frank, in the year of 1945, or if she will stay in the year 1743 with the new man that she slowly starts to fall for.
I feel like nearly everything there is to know about humans in a general sense, you could gleam from this book. It’s a historical fiction book that covers romance, violence - fighting -war, jealousy, the good of humanity and the kindness of people, and the complete opposite side of that spectrum and the absolute evil nature of those who gain too much power. There is a sense of magic within the book, both because of other “beasts that can time travel” (a water horse, which I believe is supposed to be the Lock ness Monster), witches, and conjuring ghosts. I should say though, it definitely needs to come with a trigger warning because there are difficult topics too- especially in regards to sexual assault/male rape. In fact, some of the book was extremely horrific and made me feel sick to my stomach with the level of details into those monstrous acts. Even though some of it was hard to digest, it was still a book of healing/hope, and the importance of family and finding the right partner in life. I felt the book gave pretty solid advice in some parts. And I definitely cackled out loud a few times at some of the banter between characters. And I teared up, too. While I truly fell in love with some of the characters, by the end of the book I had a visceral hate for some of the others. And while there were a few instances of me wondering why a part was even included in the book, I was glad to see that the author always gave reason for those added bits because they were mentioned for a reason.
Overall, I think this was a very beautiful story (even if it could have left some of the terrifying details of the sexual assault out) and I cannot wait to read the second book in the series.
For those who want to see if they’d like this book or not, I strongly recommend reading “The Scribe of Sienna,” which was advertised as “the French version of Outlander.” It’s a much shorter book, indeed, but has a lot of the same elements. (Though the story telling in Outlander is much more in depth.)
Absolutely fantastic!
5
By QHShowgirl
This is one of my all time favorite books, and in it, Diana Gabaldon has created a timeless masterpiece. I can’t count the number of times I’ve read it—certainly more times than the number of books in this series, as each time she writes a new book, I can’t stand it, I have to read all of them over again, so my memory is refreshed, and I can capture each nuance of the whole story. But, I also get impatient, waiting for the next book in the series (although I completely appreciate the time, effort and work she puts in each of her books, to make them as realistic as possible to the period of time that they represent), and I go back and reread them all, as well as all of the books in her Lord John series, just to kind of feel like I am revisiting old friends. An excellent book, and truly exceptional series! I would recommend this to anyone who loves a good story, and appreciates fact based historical novels!
