Outlander

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Narrator: Davina Porter
Length: 33 hrs, 8 min
Publish: Dell (June 1992) 
Type: Audiobook
Rate: 5

Synopsis:

In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon--when she innocently touches a boulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an "outlander"—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding border clans in the year of our Lord...1743. Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire's destiny in soon inextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidden Castle Leoch. She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life ...and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire...and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

My Review

I was reluctant at first to listen to Outlander, but was too curious about the new show coming out not to. I hope reading this review you won’t make the same mistake.  
In my opinion, this story (the entire series) is undoubtingly one of the best pieces of historical fiction ever written. Told from the view of Claire Beauchamp Randall Fraser, the story is of a new life she finds when she goes about sight-seeing in Scotland and vanishes through the stones without apprisal. Claire makes the best of the situations in which she finds herself, but fell in love with a highlander making her internal struggle between the life she knew with her first husband and the life she has now with her second increasingly tumultuous. 

Initially, Claire battles with being married to Frank Randall in her own time and being forced to marry James (Jamie) Fraser to save her life but now finds herself truly in love with him. Her love is so absolute for Jamie she refuses to return to her own time to a life of being a dutiful wife choosing to walk the path with Jamie no matter the situation as his partner. Of course the 18th century view of women was nothing more than a man’s property but Jamie treats Claire with the respect and thoughtfulness of an equal. 

Before Claire placed her hands on the stones and vanished into the past 200 years landing in the 18th century, she was a combat nurse rekindling a marriage that had separated her from her husband Frank. But being with Jamie she realizes she would rather live what people call now a hard life (compared to the lack of technology in the 18th century) than to return to her own time to a man she loves but is not in love with. There is a difference. Love itself is a mercurial emotion and given distance and time can either fade into a dim memory of what was or grow stronger with hopefulness of what will be. For Claire being with Jamie is home in a way that she never felt with Frank. 

The story mends together the delicate fibers of Claire and Jamie marriage as they learn the ends and outs of being in love and what it is truly meant to have and be a husband and wife. But love is never painless and never without some abnegation. Together they endure scandals, sacrifice, truth, and personal losses of those they love. 

Diana Gabaldon created a story that doesn’t diminish the capacity of love but illustrates how time and circumstance can change a person. She does a wonderful job relaying how love can make a person preserve and be stronger than what they were before, or what they could imagine they could be. And how love can provide the strength a person alone may not possess to be courageous to make heart wrenching decisions. 

I honestly have never listened to a book so breath-taking (well maybe the rest of the Outlander Series all equally as great as the first book) and have been so enthralled in a story that was fiction but seemed so real to touch. I have stayed up weeks listening to the series narrated by Davina Porter who brings to life each character with distinction and charisma. She is irrefutably the best narrator for this series. I highly recommend this book and the series.

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