Book Two of the Outlander series! It was a good one. I will say that! In book two of this series, we discover what happened to Claire Randall Fraser and her husband Jamie Fraser or well what has happened.
By the way I have noticed that I did not give an overall rating of Outlander which sort of seems stupid but I won't just say four stars or five stars. I think I will have it have something to do with things that go on with the book! Oh and it will be out of ten! So let's say that Outlander was 8 Generations of the Randalls our of 10!
Twenty some years after her disappearance, Dr. Claire Randall and her daughter Brianna make their way back to the Highlands of Scotland. There they meet Roger Wakefield, the adopted son of the Reverend Wakefield; the little boy that Claire meets on the stairs in Outlander. Frank Randall has died and Claire is said to be making a trip with Brianna to show her the past. They find their way to Culloden and when Claire sees the headstone of one James Fraser, the story of what truly happened when she disappeared comes out and we find out what happens to Claire and Jamie once they left England to go to France.
It seems that Claire and Jamie tried everything to keep Bonnie Prince Charlie from leaving Rome and then France to go to Scotland but once it was in his arrogant little head, he had to go. Knowing the time, despite Jamie being a Laird, I really don't think that there was anything that could have kept Charles Stuart in France. No matter what knowledge Claire had, she wasn't going to manage that. However, if the point of this book was to make me research Charles Stuart, Flora MacDonald, and spend time researching things that my Canadian education did not teach me, good job on that! So despite the best efforts of Claire and Jamie, Charles Stuart or Bonnie Prince Charlie whatever you want to call him was not staying in France especially not when his mistress said that his child was her husband's. Non, non, non! However, much happens before this. Claire makes an enemy of an enemy trader of Jamie's cousin and this causes quite an underhanded row of sorts. Jamie spends a fair amount of time with King Louis and picks up a little French pickpocket named Claudel from a brothel that he names Fergus. Fergus is told to keep an eye on Claire and steal the mail of Charles Stuart.
Claire becomes a healer in France and volunteers at a hospital despite being pregnant with their child. It is here that she meets Mary (quick google search to remember her last name, all I can think is Mary with the stutter) Hawkins who will apparently have the child of Black Jack Randall who is apparently dead. She is scheduled to marry some marquess or some high ranking lord but she falls in love with Alex Randall, the brother of Black Jack Randall, whom Jamie nearly kills. Claire has forgotten about the row with the other trader and because of that when she and Mary are in the alley they are attacked and Mary Hawkins is raped. Which causes Mary to slightly lose her mind and while Jamie and Claire are trying to hide it, she accidentally tells a whole dinner party leaving them in a pickle. However, it does blow over with time.
However, the biggest blow is yet to come for Jamie and Claire because Black Jack Randall is not dead and when he shows up in Paris, Jamie goes mental. He challenges him to a duel and Claire ends up losing her child because of showing up at it. It's a daughter; Jamie ends up in the Bastille for dueling and Claire thinks that he has abandoned her because no one bothers to tell her that Jamie has not left but is in jail. She gets him out by using her body, in other words having sex with King Louis (ugh) and Jamie feels very bad for this but they abandon France and head back to Scotland because that is the condition of setting Jamie free.
They head back to Scotland and start to lead a quieter life at Lallybroch until a letter arrives from Bonnie Prince Charlie stating that the rebellion has started via Jamie's signature. Jamie has no choice but to start moving his troops and he does. On the way they meet up with an English soldier, a young English Solider, by the name of Lord John Grey. He sneaks to the woods trying to save Claire from the Scottish barbarians but gets caught, Jamie breaks his arm, they negotiate and Jamie decides to let him go after Claire patches him up. From that point on it's battles and army talk while Jamie and Claire try to figure out how to stop it. Before Culloden, Claire says to Jamie that they should assasinate Charles and Dougal McKenzie overhears them and it ends with Jamie killing Dougal and then sending Claire back to her time because he knows that she is pregnant and he has every intention of dying at Culloden.
Back to 1968; Claire tells Brianna of her parentage and tells Brianna and Roger, who had suspected this, that Frank told her to never tell Brianna that until after he had died. Brianna of course refuses to believe that the man that she thought was her father was not. Claire then drops a bomb on Roger by telling him that she believes that he is a descendant of Dougal McKenzie and Gellis Duncan, the other time traveller who was burned as a witch. Roger says nothing about it really but they agree that they numbers 1 9 6 8 that Claire were given by Gellis meant 1968 and they try to track her down. They do find Gillian Edgars but only after she has killed her husband and travelled back in time. Roger then leaves us with a cliffhanger when he says that Jamie Fraser did not die at Culloden.
My Thoughts
It seems like a while since I read this book and I guess it was last year but I think that it was really good. I will give it 7 duels out of 10. I especially liked the parts where we met Jamie's grandsire Lord Lovat and all the badness that he managed to get up to. He was definitely a sneaky old man who wanted his land back. I think Claire is a strong woman to keep her memories of Jamie close all these years and not let anyone tell her that she made them up or that she was crazy. Brianna I think had a normal reaction to the whole your father was a Highland outlaw in the early 18th century. No one is going to take that well. I would say you're crazy but it's a nice story. I think it's interesting that Lord Lovat doesn't play such a big role in this book but his name is brought up again in Voyager and it seems that he has a bigger role to play or at least his line does. The fact that I know what happens and that I have purchased all 8 of these books and the Lord John Grey books besides tells you that I am intrigued by what will happen with Jamie and Claire. I'm not saying that they are the best books ever and they will probably never be classics but they're good. If you want to go back in time and imagine that you are a part of the Highlands with a handsome strapping, Scottish man then read them to your hearts content. If you don't like sex or violence it's not your style. If you can't follow an out there storyline that is a bit topsy turny at times, this series will not be for you. If you like Historical Fiction and can appreciate a well researched book that might be a little bit out there, it is for you. I would advise you to read it! On that note I'm going to go watch Downton Abbey!
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