Diana Gabaldon

Fiction 2021 | 903pages

(TRYING FOR THE TENTH(?) TIME … PERHAPS, JUST PERHAPS, WE HAVE SOLVED THE WORD PRESS ISSUES.  SORT OF.)

This is the ninth book in the luscious Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.  I carried the 903-page 2.2 pound brick with me on airplanes and throughout my week at beaches and infinity pools at Puerto Morales.  It was a constant, but heavy, companion! Drawing me into the American Revolution and entertaining me with the lives of the Frasers, MacKensies, and many (many!) other characters.

Unfortunately, I think Gabaldon has run out of things to say and stories to tell.  Her tales of life on Fraser’s Ridge amidst the families … Methodist, Presbyterian, Catholic, and Quaker … who have come to build homes, feed their families in the 1770s, add many children to the growing generations, survive and even thrive in the western mountains of North Carolina; were engaging, interesting, and built upon the extremely well-developed characters of Claire, Jamie, Brianna, Roger, and numerous natural and adopted offspring.  However, her stories of many men, negotiating their way through the politics, loyalties, and very confusing family lineage in the war, were often confounding and difficult to follow.  And I found little tension in her story … little mystery to uncover.  I seldom cared what might happen next.

For diehard Outlander fans, Go Tell the Bees that I am Gone, is a book to read out of loyalty and curiosity, but not out of a sense of “it is compelling, and I can’t put it down” commitment.  So yes, continue the saga, and read it.  For non-Outlander fans, you MUST go back to book one, Outlander, and start there!  Yes, if you begin and become hooked, you have 8047 pages of reading ahead of you, and Gabaldon is writing book 10 of the series as I type!  I do love the series, I just don’t feel this is her strongest work.

March 2022