Outlander Book Review – Who is Diana Gabaldon?

2012 marks the 20th anniversary of Outlander
book, in what has become an 8+ book
series by Arizona author Diana Gabaldon.

If you love adventure-romance mixed the factual history,
you will love Outlander.

The Outlander book story begins in Inverness Scotland,
1945, WWII has just ended and British combat nurse, Claire Beauchamp-Randall
and her military/historian husband, Frank have reunited after time apart during
World War II.

This was supposed to be a 2nd honeymoon, as war and duties had
separated the couple for years.

Things seem to be going well in the Outlander book story and they are settling
back into married life, when Claire, having an interest in
botany, returns to a spot near some stones where she remembered
some interesting flowers. The next thing she knows she’s laying in
a field and it’s 1743. Well actually, it took some time
and some clever maneuvering on Claire’s part to finally
get confirmation of what she could hardly believe had
happened to her and to face the reality that she may never
return to her own time or her husband Frank.

Claire being the logical, smart,resourceful women, something men
of the 18th century were defiantly not accustomed to, was somehow
able to convince her hosts she was a widowed Lady, traveling with a servant
to France, happen upon misfortune and was currently stranded.
But stranded was not a good thing to be for an English woman,
a Sassenach in 1743 Scotland with clan wars and British
occupation.

Claire uses her nursing and medical skills as a “healer”  to be indispensable
to Clan McKenzie or so she thought, however  the clan chieftain
considered her more of a bargaining chip with the British stationed

in the area. Both sides, in fact thought her a spy for the other side.
In the Outlander Book series, Claire can’t produce any family, facts or persons to
substantiate her current story f how she came to be in Scotland, things are precarious.

The commanding officer of the local British garrison a Johnathan
Wolverton Randall (Black Jack for short) was in fact
the 5x great grandfather and almost splitting image of her husband
Frank. A fact Claire in the Outlander Book Series  found disarming and sickening, as this very handsome
officer was both charming and barbarically sadistic.

In the Outlander Book, living with a historian in 1945 will help her in some aspects
for what she will have to deal with now, in the past.

She knows what written history allowed her to know. She know her husband’s
family tree, which gave her some leverage, but nothing could
really prepare her for being either turned over to the British
garrison commander to face changes of spying, imprisonment and
probable death or being protected by Scottish law and clan
McKenzie. It was hardly a tough decision until she realized
for this protection she must become a Scot, by marriage.

Claire had come to know a young clansmen, Jamie, an outlaw with a
price on his head and no thing to offer a new wife except his
honesty who would come to mean more to her than life itself.

Claire swirling in a sea of emotions, finding it hard to
navigate both emotionally and physically. She knew in her
logical mind what she needed to do to survive, but still felt
the pull of her life in 1945. She had to find some way to
return to her own time and place, to find her way back through
the stones.

But could she  leave the life she had now created in 1743
and her new husband?

Follow the adventures of Claire and Jamie as they forge a life
together.

Live a love that will span over 200 years in the outlander
book series.