My rating: 4 of 5 stars
You’ve seen the series and dribbled over the thought of Sam Heughan’s legs in a kilt, now read the book! If you’ve not done the latter I highly recommend it, replacing Heughan’s legs and face with Caitriona Balfe’s as and where preference requires.
On a second honeymoon in Scotland after the Allies’ victory in WWII, Claire Randall nee Beauchamp (pronounced Beech-um) finds herself transported – thanks to some druid magicked standing stones – back to 1743. The Scots are rebelling against the English, the English are suppressing the Scots, and Claire is caught in between, trusted by neither side on account of either her English accent or her unexplained presence in the Highlands. With only the hindsight history has given her, and a vague knowledge of medicinal herbs, Claire has to find her way back to the stones and back to her home time. Or at least she would were it not for an impending rebellion, and a six foot kilt wearing, sword wielding, ginger headed Highlander.
I was pleasantly surprised by this book! Coming from an American author I was apprehensive that it would be the usual European History via MGM offering, however, Gabaldon manages to capture the feel of living in the past with a fluency usually reserved to writers who have grown up and lived around relics of the period.
There are some Historical Fiction tropes (e.g. Jamie being a mountain of a man but soft as a teddy at heart) I can’t say I ever felt like I was reading a cliché, even when epic plot moments ventured near melodrama. Even Claire felt well paced; often with first-person led protagonists I’ve found authors can too easily fall into a trap of making the character too modern without seeing any consequences of thinking and acting so differently from the period they are in. Regardless that Claire literally is a modern woman, Gabaldon uses her modernity measuredly – it’s always haunting at the edges as knowledge in hindsight or the threat of being assumed a witch in the period’s ignorance – and never as a ‘deus ex machina’.
However, I’m more thankful that Claire isn’t relegated to being a plucky damsel in distress next to Jamie’s walking man-wall of masculinity with a hero complex. As a note on the time travel theme, it’s not cheesy or of the sci-fi oddity a reader might associate with Doctor Who, it’s woven very subtly into the novel, if anything it helps transport an equally modern reader to the 1740s, and creates necessary intrigue both within the over all plot and Jamie and Claire’s relationship.
My only tiny niggle is that after leaving Castle Leoch the plot sort of becomes ‘one damn thing after another’. I preferred the small dramas of the castle over the large bounding leaps made once Claire and Jamie leave.
Also towards the end I felt it got a little disjointed, I found Claire’s sudden consideration of believing in God a random addition – even if she was in a monastery, this theme is something she never approached in the rest of the book so it felt rather out of place for her to suddenly question belief (I have to admit I rolled my eyes and assumed this was typical but unconscious American evangelism on Gabaldon’s part). Otherwise Gabaldon writes well with a good sense of pace, description, and when to include comic relief.
Although part of a larger series, Outlander can easily be read as a standalone novel if you don’t want to invest in the next eight, nine or more books. As it’s told from a female first person perspective – and is basically to female power, romantic, and sexual fantasies what Batman comics are to the male equivalent – it’s possible this will appeal more to female readers. However, if you’ve enjoyed books, or series, such as Poldark then most likely you’ll enjoy reading this.
There’s a fair amount of non-graphic sex in it (at least by fanfiction standards), and if you’ve a problem with scenes that don’t automatically fade to black then this isn’t for you. Don’t complain about something you were forewarned about.
Content warnings:
Major warning for Rape.
Minor for domestic abuse, but this should be viewed within the context of the period (and the plot) and not necessarily by modern standards.
Minor for sex.
Outlander / Cross Stitch (UK) by Diana Gabaldon. Paperback £8.99, also available in audio and ebook formats.
The Curvy Bookcase 