Written by Diana Gabaldon, published in 1991. Summary and review.
Outlander is the first book in the Outlander series about a time traveling former combat nurse from WWII (which has JUST ended) who mistakenly travels back to 1743 Scotland Highlands during a Samhain (re: Halloween) ritual celebration.
Claire, our heroine, leaves behind her fiancé Frank and must navigate a vastly different landscape (though technically, the same landscape) to survive in very different times with constant skirmishes between the Scots and English Redcoats.
Claire meets Jamie and a group of Scots that take her in and she provides value with her knowledge of modern medicine and nursing care while constantly being accused of being an English spy. Because English bad, Scots good.
She also encounters the distant relative of her current (re: future) fiancé Frank, a redcoat leader and all-around bad dude.
What I do find interesting in this story, is how (mostly) Claire doesn’t seem too phased with the whole time travel part, and has little effort put forth in trying to figure out how to travel back – though spoiler, she does ultimately go down this path. It’s just the level of disinterest that I found shocking. Though to be fair, survival is first and foremost.
Claire assimilates quite well to the olden times, and decides to hell with future Frank, and marries Jamie, her Scottish savior. Jamie alludes to some secrets he has, and never really presses Claire on hers which leads me to believe he too may be a time traveler – though this is never confirmed nor denied. Perhaps we learn more in subsequent books? He’s a nice guy though, aside from a casual beating he throws down on her, he teaches her to use a dagger (which comes in handy later) and gets his cherry popped by Claire because he’s an olden times loser virgin.
Ultimately, this book is a love story where Claire decides to live in the past times with her new husband Jamie and we do get a few steamy scenes. Luckily (for me) it’s not too in-your-face and thus is quite manageable. The TV show however does seem to take that aspect and dial it up a notch (unrelated).
I’m certainly curious where this story goes in the following series as we do meet another character, Geillis, who is confirmed to also be a time traveler. What or how this happens remains a mystery, but the possibilities are endless!
I do very much enjoy Claire’s interactions with past-timey folks and her knowledge of medicine… given, as we know, they knew jack-ish about sterilization, germs, sanitation, or anything even remotely related to how to properly heal (or prevent) disease… outside of a few herbal remedies which I suppose do have some merit.
Outside of time travelers and “witchcraft” there are some wild goings-ons between Claire, Jamie, and the Redcoats. Jamie… I’ll just say… goes through it. Then latter 3rd of the book is an absolute trip. And certainly worth getting to.
TLDR. A fun read with lots of nuance. Claire is a strong-willed woman who manages integrate into the world of the 1700’s with shocking ease. And while this book is a tad sexual, it’s quite reasonable. Can’t say I loved the final end to the book, but am excited to see where this story goes. Would Recommend. 4/5 Stars.
