This took me a long time to slog through, and I think the last time I read it it was hard work, too, mostly because the focus is shifting from Jamie and Claire and I don’t particularly care for any of the other characters. One thing that I really struggled with this time was the roving POV. Each time it was a new section and a new “I” it took me a good couple of paragraphs to work out who the hell was talking to me. As the POV switched quite regularly that was a lot of time that I was out of the story. ( )

These books drive me CRAZY and yet I CAN'T STOP READING THEM. I have friends who have read the entire Twilight series, and while let's give Gabaldon credit for being a much better writer than Meyer, it's in a lot of ways the same hypnotic trainwreck: an impossibly perfect author proxy heroine with no personality save the smugness that comes with knowing she is impossibly perfect, a universally desired hero whose preference for the heroine over everyone else he has ever met, male or female, all of whom want him, is yet more proof of her impossible perfection, and a large amount of page space devoted to said hero and heroine discussing her perfection and calling these discussions love. AND I CAN'T LOOK AWAY.

Anyhoo, so in this book our scene has moved to 1767 America. Remember how incredibly (and inexplicably, given her 1960's origin) racist our heroine is? Well, let's put her among Native Americans! What could possibly go wrong? Nothing, unless you have a problem with the word "savages", used an awful lot. Interestingly, the eighteenth-century characters tend to call them "Indians"; it is our heroine who pulls out the "red savages" tag. Also she makes fun of how they smell. In return, they recognize her as a more magical shaman than any of their own race (no, seriously, she somehow develops mystical Native American-based powers; this is not a reference to her medical training) and respect her enormously, and in one case a Native American spirit comes to rescue her. When she needs rescue because she decided to shelter from a lightning storm under a tree. Hoo boy.

Meanwhile, in the twentieth century, our heroine's daughter has fallen in love with a dude who subscribes to the same idea of love as her father, i.e., This Love is Fated Therefore I Get to Yell at You a Lot. When we first met this guy a couple books back he was kind of nerdy and sweet and I liked him, but the second he fell in love Gabaldon turned him into her standard romantic lead and now he's bossy and sex-crazed. And boring. The daughter is no prize herself: her version of gaydar consists of, "This guy doesn't want to sleep with me, and there is no possible explanation for that beyond homosexuality." Apparently self-satisfaction is hereditary.

At least the enormous wolf-like dog makes it through, which I feared would not be the case. And given that I read with my own enormous wolf-like dog curled up at my feet, there would have been hell to pay if Rollo had not made it.

I will always give the Outlander series 5 stars. The research that the author puts into these books, is amazing. I am so glad that none of the books I have, have pictures of the characters on them. I like to imagine them in my own mind. You will love this book. Her books are long-but worth the read. ( )

Starts with the hanging of a Culloden veteran in the colony of Charleston.

Brianna decides to go after her parents to warn them they might die. and Roger follows her. After fighting, they get together. Then they fight again and separate. Brianna is raped, and gets pregnant. Jamie turns Roger over as a slave to the Indians. Ends with them deciding to make a life together, and Roger claiming the child is his, regardless of genetics.

I quit reading the series during this book last time through. I spot read parts of it, but didn't read all of it last time. ( )

Another captivating link in the Fraser chain. Drums of Autumn takes the reader deep into the wilderness of North Carolina--an especially gratifying choice of setting considering that I now rest my head there. It was delightful for me to say aloud, "Hey! I know where they are!"; this delight was matched only by the instances of furious passion, gut-retching detail, and indelible love. It is difficult for me to say hardly anything of the book without giving all of its secrets away, so I will only say this: read it. ( )