Rating: Summary: I'm Hooked! Review: Dragonfly In Amber by Diana Gabaldon is the second installment in the Outlander series. Although not as good as the first book it comes very close and still maintains a five star rating. The book's unconventional beginning for a series, starts years in the future from where we first left Jamie and Claire in Outlander. This gave me some concern at first but that was quickly abated as I was sucked back into the world of the Frasers and all their adventures. Please make sure you have Voyager on hand because there is a major tear-jerking cliffhanger at the end of Dragonfly In Amber and you will most certainly want to keep reading.
Rating: Summary: Artfully crafted attention to details Review: I have read an abundance of books. This one turns on many details. They are NOT however, long boring scene descriptions and such where you sigh "Geez, get on with it!" Diana Gabaldon crafts details into this series that pull you into the lives of Jamie and Claire Fraser. You cannot wait to get to the next book of each series. I found myself perturbed at any interuption when engrossed in these stories. Looking forward to the Fiery Cross.
Rating: Summary: The second glimpse into the lives of Jamie and Claire! Review: In this, the second book in the wonderful time-travel adventure begun in _Outlander_, we are once again pulled into the life and love of Jamie and Claire Fraser -- and what an intoxicating, exhilarating, adventurous, passionate, provocative place it is! Immediately, you are absorbed in this epic story and once again Ms. Gabaldon sets you on the path of a legendary love. You certainly need to have read _Outlander_ to have a full appreciation of the story as we are swept twenty years into the future. The characters are true to form and come to life in the same way as they did in the previous novel. Claire is once again the self-sufficient, sarcastic and brave heroine and Jamie is, as always, the loyal, strong and proud hero. Some authors tend to sway from their original characters when writing a sequel, but Ms. Gabaldon is certainly not one of those writers. She stays true to her characters and the reader once again sees them as real people. The characters are placed on a variety of backdrops from the Scottish Highlands to the intrigue-ridden French court and as always Ms. Gabaldon brings these settings to vivid life and transports the reader into the landscape. Once again there is plenty of history and political intrigue but Ms. Gabaldon handles these so well that the reader is blissfully unaware that they're learning anything -- instead, they are caught up in the action and history comes to life. _Outlander_ readers will be glad to see some familiar faces in the secondary characters and will be sad at the loss of some we've grown to love or contented at the loss of some we've grown to hate. One thing about this story that I absolutely loved was meeting Jamie and Claire's daughter Brianna. She is such a mixture of Jamie and Claire that from the moment you meet her you feel as though you know her. I'm quite interested to see where the quasi-romance between Brianna and Roger Wakefield (you'll remember him as the precocious adopted son of the Reverend Wakefield from _Outlander_!) ends up. As always, Ms. Gabaldon took me on a roller-coaster ride for the emotions -- from laughing to crying -- I enjoyed every single minute of it. And, speaking of crying, please, please have Kleenex near at hand. I've never, in all my reading life, cried so much while reading a book. Even as I write this review, I ask myself: How can I possibly put into words how wonderful this book is? And the answer is: I can't. _Drangonfly in Amber_ (just as _Outlander_ before it) is something you have to experience firsthand. There are no words to convey the depth of feeling that is included in the pages of this book. I firmly believe that Diana Gabaldon has cemented her place in literary history. She continually sets forth novels that steal the heart and astound the mind. Don't forget to continue the saga with _Voyager_ and then _Drums of Autumn_ and when you've finished with those, be prepared to wait in a form of happiness/agony like the rest of us for the continuation and completion of the tale.
Rating: Summary: Dragonfly in Amber Review: Gabaldon has done it again! I read this book out of order (3rd instead of 2nd)and it was Wonderful. I could not put it down. Engaging, adverturous, funny, romantic this book has it all. One warning,have book 3 (Voyager) ready when you finish this one, you won't want the story to stop.
Rating: Summary: Series should have ended with the first. Review: Outlander was one of those wonderful emotional reading experiences that leaves you daydreaming sequels in your head for a long time after the last page of the original was done - and then you are greatly relieved to learn that there were several sequels actually written to keep the beloved characters alive. However, in this case, I really wished I had left the continuation of Jamie and Claire to my own imagination, and not had them ruined by Dragonfly in Amber. I only managed to get through half of Dragonfly before I gave up on the continued adventures of Jamie and Claire. While Outlander was a wonderful genre-bending adventure/love story, in some ways in the same tradition of the Mysts of Avalon, Dragonfly (at least the first 435 pages) is a bodice-ripper trying to pass itself off as historical fiction. And, more unforgiveably, it's a boring bodice-ripper. My advise to readers who adored Outlander but in general don't go for straight romance novels - let the story end with Outlander.
Rating: Summary: Many books are good-only a few are great Review: Transforms one back into time in such a believable way. The characters are so alive and their depth so exposed. I have recommended Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber to many and will continue to do so. These two books rate along with my other top all time books--Cider House Rules and Atlas Shrugged. Reading them in order is a good idea.
Rating: Summary: Dragonfly in Amber Review: A riveting continuation of an imaginative and captivating author's tale of Jamie & Claire. It brought to life a slice of history with which I was unfamiliar, and made me want more of both Diana Gabaldon's series and to learn more of the history of the time. Each time I finished a book, I couldn't wait for the next one to be released. An excellent read.
Rating: Summary: the saga continues Review: Dragonfly in Amber follows two storylines. The past line, where we see Jamie and Claire playing every card they have in order to stop Bonnie Prince Charlie's doomed uprising against the English in 1745, and when those efforts fail, doing everything they can to ensure that he will succeed. The present line is where we find out that Claire returned to her own time when Jamie realized that his Sassenach was pregnant, and on the eve of the Battle of Culloden, sent her forward home to a safer time, in a raw, furiously heart-wrenching scene filled with love, tears, blood, and sex. After giving up the man she loved with all her heart and soul, Claire couldn't bring herself to find out what his fate was at Culloden Moor, despite the fact that Frank Randall, her first husband was, of all things, a Jacobite scholar. It is only twenty years later, when Frank is dead, that Claire is absolved of the promise she made to him - the promise to both allow him to raise Jamie's daughter, Brianna, as his own, and to tell her nothing of her true parentage. Frank was, by all accounts, a devoted father, and Brianna, who worships his memory, stubbornly refuses to believe her mother's fantastic tale of living with a Scottish Highlander in the 1740s for three years. Regardless, Claire decides that now is the time to find the truth. Helping Claire in her quest is Roger Wakefield, whom we met in Outlander as the five-year-old adopted son of the Reverend Wakefield. Roger, who will play a very important role in this and the following novels, walks a fine line between his scholarly fascination with the fate of the men who were such an integral part of Claire's life, and his attraction to Brianna Randall. In the end, it is his discovery of a document (a real life document which, according to master-of-research Gabaldon, was the one that finally gave the character of Jamie his last name) and the information in it that close the book, paving the way for Voyager, the next installment in the series. Claire, resourceful as ever, moves easily from the rough conditions on the road to the warmth of Jamie's family life at Lallybroch, to the gilded royal court in pre-Revolutionary France. She is filled with sensual delight when it comes to Jamie In modern times, she finds joy in her tall, redheaded, stubborn, Viking-boned daughter, and continues to mourn the loss of her gallant Highlander. Jamie is as intense and striking a charcter as you will find in any novel. His love for Claire is so deep and strong that he finds death a preferable fate to life without her, and resigns himself to dying honorably at Culloden. Loyal, strong, intense in every emotion, Jamie Fraser is the redheaded stuff of which dreams are made. This is definitely not a stand-alone book, and after reading Outlander, I couldn't well just stop there. It is a testament to Gabaldon's extraordinary skill that Dragonfly In Amber manages to lure us all the way back in, and we are only too willing to follow.
Rating: Summary: Dragonfly in Amber Review: Dragonfly in Amber is the second book of a series of four.Each one is five stars. Diana has made the characters so real,to me, I couldn't leave them at the library. I bought them after I read them. Each one I read within three days, and now sorry I didn't read,a little slower. Tho' I will read them all again. Thanks Diana.
Rating: Summary: The best series ever Review: I can't say enough good things about this series. Diana G. is a genius. I have slowly parceled out the reading of these books because I am now so fond of Claire and Jamie that I can't stand to finish the books and see them gone. I only wish that she would authorize a mini series of the books.
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