Rating: 
Summary: one word--boring
Review: I am so glad I didn't purchase this book because it'll be a waste of good money and time. For a book thats over 900 pages long, I feel like I'm reading a bad soap opera that drags on and on and on. For instance, part one of the book can be condensed into one chapter, if not a couple of pages, but it stretches to 80 some odd pages! Overall, this book is too focused on the background information to really emphasize the main characters of the book.
Rating: 
Summary: Once you start . . . you can't stop!
Review: This book is amazing . . Once you pick it up - you won't beable to put it down - it draws you in and makes you forget about everything else but what's happening inside the story. You feel as if you are there - with the charatures! It's a wonderful series!
Rating: 
Summary: While I loved the book, the audio version was disappointing
Review: There are so many backup characters , such as Master Raymond, and Mother Hildegard, that have been deleted in the audio version. These characters not only add richness to the initial book, but they are fairly important to the development of the later books! I know being "abridged" means editing some out, but I have to say I was pretty disappointed. I bought the cd because I wanted to experience the books in a new way; that is, hearing the accents, instead of just imagining them. Also, the majority of love scenes have been deleted as well. I'd have thought that they could leave in bits and pieces without snipping the entire sections! I love these books, but I won't buy the rest of the cd's!
Rating:
Summary: I love Jamie...oh yeah, and Claire.
Review: The story: This is the Second book in the Outlander series. It is now 20 years since Claire plunged through time by walking through the standing stones. Now she is back in her own time, with a grown daughter, Brianna. Claire cannot let the past rest. She hires a family friend, Roger Wakefield, to do some research on the men she knew in the past. All the men except Jaime, her husband she was forced to leave in 1700s Scotland, because she knows that he died at the Battle of Culloden.
Claire now has to face the ordeal of telling her daughter whom her real father is. Brianna does not believe her, but Claire continues the story of her life with Jamie. As Brianna and Roger research Claire's story they start to believe that Jamie may not have died at Culloden. Could Jamie have survived Culloden, and if so, what happened to him? This book begins at the end. In the opening chapters Claire is back in her own time, with her 18 year old daughter. That part is a little confusing, but then Claire proceeds to tell her and Jamie's story. The action in this book is fantastic. The stories of war are tragic and heartbreaking. The settings are also very detailed. The reader gets to experience Paris in the 18th century and the backroads of Scotland while the troops travel from battle to battle.
Miss Gabaldon is an extremely talented writer, and her character development is phenomenal. If you did not fall in love with Jamie in the Outlander, you definitely will in this book. Her portrayal of Dougal MaCKenzie (Jaime's Uncle), Bonnie Prince Charlie, Jared (Jamie's cousin in France), Mother Hildegarde (a nun at the hospital in Paris where Claire works), and Master Raymond (a herbalist friend of Claire's) are amazing. You really get to know each and every character in these books.
Jamie to Claire: "When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest. Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well!" ---Ahh! Read the book!
JBogue
paper-and-lace
Specializing in paranormal romance and fiction.
Rating:
Summary: The Best Reading
Review: These books in the Outlander series are wonderful, even, or possibly especially, the second time around. The first time you read for what will happen, the second time you really experience the richness of detail and romance. There are none better, as far as I'm concerned.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best in the series...
Review: ..Of course, they are ALL the best! Though I know Jamie and Claire are fictional characters, I've become convinced they are real. I feel as if I WAS Claire and lived that life and Jamie was MY soul mate. I've fallen in love and had my heart torn out along with her through out the series, altough I think Dragonfly was probably the hardest...to say goodbye to my true love...ouch, that hurt. I walked around for days with swollen eyes and an ache in my heart that I didn't know how to heal. Luckily, I got to read on and on.
I'm estatic to hear there will be at least two books after Fiery Cross...How lucky! My life will go on.
Diana Gabaldon is, (arguably, I suppose I have to say!), the single most talented author of our time. I feel blessed to have discovered her, and hope she realizes how many hearts her words have touched.
If you haven't read her books, you need to. If you have, you will again and again, these are stories that stay with you forever and become a part of you, I promise!
Rating:
Summary: WARNING! Reading these books will cause a strong addiction!
Review: And I might add that no amount of therapy will cure you!
I had to go to a conference this past week--a four hour drive from my home. Since my husband drove, this gave me a glorious block of UNINTERUPPTED time to finish DRAGONFLY IN AMBER. I also brought almost a month's worth of unread newspapers and several unopened PEOPLE magazines. In addition, I brought along a newly published and highly acclaimed book of short stories written by one of my former students. My intentions were to finish my book and then catch up on the aforementioned readings. HA! Thankfully, I also packed Gabaldon's third book because no amount of self-control would allow me to read anything but VOYAGER! I have no idea when I'm going to clean my house or do my Christmas shopping (I do still go to work). The only reason I'm writing this review is that I don't want all the books to 'run together'.
DRAGONFLY IN AMBER is the second book of the highly acclaimed Outlander series. Jamie and Claire's adventures continue but the story actually begins at the end. It is 1968 and Claire has returned to Scotland with her 20-year-old daughter, Brianna. The next nearly 1000 pages involve Claire, Brianna, and a young historian named Roger and their attempts to find out what happened to Jamie, the love of Claire's life (and Brianna's father). Most of this novel is about what happens to the young lovers in the two years before Claire escapes back through the rocks in the year 1746.
Gabaldon is an extremely gifted writer. Her character development is so phenomenal that I too, have fallen in love with the red-headed Scottish Highlander. When he says things like: "Oh, Claire, ye do break my heart wi' loving you." or, "Dye think I don't know? It's me that has the easy part now. For if ye feel for me as I do for you--then I am asking you to tear out your heart and live without it." and, " I will find you, (he whispered in my ear). I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you--then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest. Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well,"--it makes me wish I was Claire!
Well, there I go, I'm crying again! Let me go get my Kleenex and continue with VOYAGER. Thank Heaven for carryout!
Rating:
Summary: OH. MY. GOD.
Review: BRILLIANT!!!! I have to tell you..I go through books like wild,but I dont think that I will ever love a character as much as Jamie Fraser...IMHO he is absolutely thee most enthralling character I have ever had the pleasure to experience...WHEW!! What a book!! A word to the wise...have tissues handy..there is one section of this story in particular that is completely heartwrenching...also, have " Voyager" ready to read right away or the ending to "Dragon fly in Amber" will leave you wildly frustrated! DEFINITELY A MUST READ!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: Jamie and Claire are back for more adventures and romance
Review: After reading Outlander, I was very much looking forward to reading Dragonfly in Amber. I was not disappointed with the second book in this series; Diana Gabaldon will grab you and suck you into this book making it so you do not want to put it down. At the start of the story, Claire is back in the year of 1968 and she has gone back to Scotland after the death of her first husband Frank, and she has brought her daughter Brianna with her. Scotland is where she wants to tell Brianna about her experiences and share with her the stories. Going back to the year 1774 Jamie and Claire are off to Paris to try and stop a battle that will happen and that tragedy will happen at. When they arrive in Paris it is there, they meet Jared a relative of Jamie's and it is there where they manage to make some friends and enemies. While in Paris Claire and Jamie have many problems and have to struggle to get through some of them, but then things change they find themselves going back to Scotland. When they arrive in Scotland to live with Jamie's sister Jenny they start to realize that the main goal of going to Paris will happen, and still the two of them want to try and stop it. As the story unfolds you start to see how strong Jamie and Claire's love is for each other, they find it hard to be away from each other and find it hard to see each other hurt. The end of this book left me wanting to devour the next book in this series. I hope that the rest of the books are just as great at the first two.
Rating:
Summary: One of the Best Books in my Personal Library!
Review: A woman in my local bookstore recommended this to me because she said it was "very historical." I certainly didn't know what to expect when I opened it, and I still can't adequately descirbe any of these books to someone who hasn't read them. I re-read this this summer, since I have been in the process of moving half way across the country and changing jobs, house, etc., and I felt that I needed the comfort of a well loved book. This sis not disappoint on the second time through. The power of the relationships and the pull of the history--this is a very historical book, I'll agree--stays with you. Jamie and Claire are in a very small group of literary characters that I would like to know--genuinely decent, interesting ficitonal people.
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