Description
What if your future was the past?
1946, and Claire Randall goes to the Scottish Highlands with her husband Frank. It’s a second honeymoon, a chance to learn how war has changed them and to re-establish their loving marriage.
But one afternoon, Claire walks through a circle of standing stones and vanishes into 1743, where the first person she meets is a British army officer – her husband’s six-times great-grandfather.
Unfortunately, Black Jack Randall is not the man his descendant is, and while trying to escape him, Claire falls into the hands of a gang of Scottish outlaws, and finds herself a Sassenach – an outlander – in danger from both Jacobites and Redcoats.
Marooned amid danger, passion and violence, her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.
Karen’s Magic Review
What an incredible read! It has over 2,000 reviews on Amazon, so I’m not even going to bother writing one ther, although I will do one for Goodreads.
In November 2019, I discovered Outlander on Amazon Prime TV and thought it looked interesting. I began watching it and was immediately hooked. When I posted about it on Facebook, several people came back telling me about the books.
I downloaded the first one as it would keep me entertained throughout the Christmas period, and it did. I’ve never watched a series and read a book at the same time, and that’s what happened.
It was interesting to see just how much they kept to the same storyline, even down to the words they spoke. The attention to detail given by the author was amazing. How she could write such an in-depth book, I don’t know.
After Claire and Jamie, the main characters, got together with all the drama and suspense you would expect, it settled into them being with each other day to day. Just as I became complacent thinking there was nowhere else to go, something happened to make me sit up and take notice again.
It got to the point where the book caught up with what I was watching. Then I read more than I watched. In the last episode I saw Jamie was captured by The Watch, and in the book I passed that point and kept reading to it’s the finale.
The hell hole of prison was hard reading. It was dark and painful, as I read what was done to him and the consequences of it. How they would portray that on telelvision? I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. The book had left me drained, and I don’t think I can go through it again on the big screen. In a way, I wished I’d have seen it before reading about it, the latter might have been easier.
Outlander is a very long book, with over 800 pages, probably a record for me as I don’t usually read anything over 400. I probably won’t read a second one, but did enjoy this and the way the characters were brought to life by watching them the screen as well.
Meanwhile, if you have read it, please leave a comment with what you thought.
Karen J. Mossman 
An exceptional series. I´ve read the first 5 and plan to read more. You can´t help but get caught up in Claire and Jamie´s story. The TV series is well cast as well.
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Yes, it’s one of the few when both TV and book are superb.
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I have read the entire Outlander series and watched the television series. The second book is well worth you reading it, as is the third. I found the move in setting to the ‘New Colonies’ needed to be pushed through, but also worth the effort. Diana Gabaldan’s attention to historical accuracy and detail is unsurpassed, and I learnt a great deal about both Scottish and early American history. I have traveled to Scotland to visit the historical and filming sites (first series thus far) and am about to plan a similar trip to North Carolina. I found Culloden fascinating, as Ms Gabaldan described the actual characters at Culloden, both in personality and appearance, and their sad fates. It doesn’t matter if these descriptions are accurate or not, the effect was the same, in that I felt I knew these men. Culloden was poignant and exceptionally moving as a result. I cannot recommend this series highly enough and would also encourage you to read some of the associated books, ie ‘Scottish Prisoner’ or the Lord John Grey series. There are other novellas which ‘fill in the blanks’, such as ‘Virgins’ and ‘A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows’. I often take advantage of an author’s offer to read the first in a series for free, and then decide if I want to purchase others by that author or in the series. I am astounded that you did not want to continue Claire and Jamie’s story in at least the second book.
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Thank you so much for such interesting thoughts about the book and the series.
I can imagine how wonderful and magical it must have been to immerse your self in the sights and sounds of Scotland visiting sites.
I will at some point move onto the second, especially after your recommendation.
Thank you for commenting.
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I haven’t read it, but it sounds intriguing. I couldn’t imagine plotting something so huge. Glad you enjoyed it. Xx
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Neither could, I just don’t know how she did it.
Thanks for commenting.
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