Dragonfly in Amber

Title: Dragonfly in Amber
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Historical, Historical romance, Time-travel
Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Dragonfly in Amber is the second book in Diana Gabaldon's phenomenal "Outlander" series. At the end of Outlander, we left Claire and Jamie Fraser in an abbey in France, exiled from Scotland. At the opening of Dragonfly in Amber, we find Claire back in the highlands in 1968, investigating the fates of Jamie's men at the battle of Culloden - with her red-haired daughter Brianna: Jamie's daughter.

As the search for Jamie's men, and then Jamie himself, unfolds, Claire finds herself revealing to Brianna and their friend Roger her history with Jamie in the past - and we learn the other half of her and Jamie's adventure as they attempt to prevent the carnage they know is coming in the Jacobite rising and its culmination at Culloden.

As with Outlander, I have nothing but praise for Dragonfly. Although I did not race through Dragonfly as quickly as I did Outlander (this time it took me roughly a month to read Dragonfly's 950 pages as opposed to the week it took me to fly through Outlander's 860 pages), I still loved it. Every time I picked the book up, I could not put it down without having read at least 100 pages, if not more.

Dragonfly in Amber had me in turns gasping, laughing, and (at the end) crying. Sometimes I did all three at once. Even though I knew the battle was an inevitability - and we, as readers know this from Claire's search in Inverness from the beginning of the novel - I found myself hoping ad praying that Claire and Jamie could somehow prevent the disaster. Having been to Culloden battlefield myself, I cried at Gabaldon's description of battles and the uselessness I knew Jamie and Claire's self-appointed mission to be.

In fact, I immediately picked up the third book, Voyager, and am already 450 pages into it. Gabaldon delivers a powerful narrative, drawing the reader fully into her world: you cry with Claire, scream with rage for Jamie, and end on a hopeful note with Claire and Brianna, searching for the man whose love for them endures through the ages.

Outlander

Title: Cross Stitch (UK Title) / Outlander
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Historical fiction/Historical romance
Rating: Can I give this 6 stars out of 5? No? Well then a very high 5 stars!

When wartime nurse Claire Randall goes on vacation in 1945 with her husband Frank to the Scottish highlands, she never dreams that she might walk through a stone circle and end up in the middle of a skirmish between English Redcoats and Scottish highlanders in 1743. Now, stranded and friendless, Claire must find her way amongst these people, fighting suspicion from both the Scotsmen who give her sanctuary and the English they hate, with but one true ally - a passionate and sincere young Scots outlaw named James Fraser.

What I can say about Outlander? I finished this last night and immediately made a post in my livejournal with lots of fangirlish squeeing going on. I'm trying very hard not to repeat that here, so I can make an intelligent review. To summarize it, though: Diana Gabaldon is amazing at her character building. I completely fell in love with Jamie, who is a very three-dimensional character, not just some generic Scottish highland romance hero. I was with Claire every step of her journey through time and the Highlands - including being PO'd at Jamie when she was. I hated the antagonist with every ounce of feeling I could muster, and loved Jamie's sister Jenny entirely.

Not only is Gabaldon a master at building characters, she presents Claire's fantastical story in such a way as to be entirely believable. I almost believe that if I were to go back to Inverness and Culloden, I would be able to find a circle of stones which could take me back to the Jacobite uprising - not that I would really want to find myself in that mess. I completely believed Claire's encounter with Nessie, and loved all the little historical details Gabaldon added to the book.

I cannot wait to race through the next 5 books in this series, and then on to the Lord John series (which is a companion series to Outlander - it takes place during the same time period, but with entirely different characters). Then I'll probably go back and re-read them again to catch all the details I missed the first time around. The book is some 850 pages long, and having gone through it in a week I know I missed a good deal of detail. I keep having to ask my mother (who introduced me to the series) about some bit or another, and have to refrain from begging her to tell me what happens later in the series!