Isobel has grown up in the town of Flood, in the saloon inhabited by the Old Man, the devil himself. It is known to all who live in the Territory, the area west of the Mississippi, that the devil always deals a fair hand. If you make a Bargain with him, he will give you exactly what you want, but you need to be careful you are sure exactly what you ask for. When Isobel turns sixteen, she is free to make her own way in the world, or to stay in Flood, continuing to work in the saloon. Yet Isobel yearns for more. She wants respect and power and the devil offers to make her his Left Hand. He already has a Right Hand, serving him well. Now he offers Isobel the chance to travel the Territory and be his eyes and ears. She accepts, despite warnings from others, but realises very quickly that she had no idea what she signed up for.

The day after her Bargain is signed, Isobel is sent off into the wilderness accompanied by Gabriel Katsun, an enigmatic card sharp who offered to mentor her on the road. Isobel is confused and a bit hurt that she's being sent away from the only home she's ever known, but can't deny that she's being given exactly what she was dreaming of before her birthday. Not that she's given any indication of what she's supposed to do or learn while on her journey. This is clearly something the devil expects her to discover on her own. After a few initially rough days, as Isobel gets accustomed to riding and sleeping rough, they settle into a pleasant routine. As they ride further away from Flood though, it's clear that there is something badly wrong going on in the Territory, some mysterious evil of unknown origin, causing sudden sickness or whole towns to be emptied entirely of both people and livestock. While she feels helpless and confused, it's also clear that as the devil's Left Hand, it is young Isobel's job to track down the source of this contamination and try to stop it. 

I really didn't know entirely what to expect from this book, but it appeared on more than one best of 2015 list in the latter half on last year, and the premise sounded intriguing. The devil in control of a large area of land in the Old West, with a sixteen year old girl as his agent? The book was on sale after Christmas, and as is so often the case, I bought it and promptly forgot about it, until it was selected as the May 2016 selection of the Vaginal Fantasy Book Club. Having followed the ladies for four years, I am fully aware that there are the occasional great selections and the frequently quite rubbish selections in this club. This book has a solid 4.0 rating on Goodreads however, and I remembered all those positive reviews I'd read. It seemed like a good time to try something different.

Unlike my husband, I'm not really a huge fan of Westerns. I've seen a few, and I watched the husband play through the entirety of Red Dead Redemption, but it's not a genre that I have a lot of experience with or find especially appealing. This book takes its time to establish the setting and the characters, and because we follow along with Isobel, we learn as she learns. That means things are only very slowly revealed and the reader needs to be patient. Don't expect a break-neck pace or a number of thrilling action set-pieces (although there's absolutely a creeping danger lurking and the occasional really shocking display of danger). A lot of the book is Isobel and Gabriel slowly riding through the countryside, with Isobel learning the ways of the riders and the lay of the land. 

This is an alternate history of sorts, where while the United States were in their infancy, the large unsettled area west of the Mississippi is controlled by the man the Christians like to name the devil. He is clearly a man of great power, but it doesn't seem unlimited and he certainly doesn't tempt men or women into sin, as they are more than capable of doing that themselves. Within his territory, his word is law and he has ancient agreements with the native peoples and the various creatures and spirits who dwell there. Different rules apply, and its inhabitants are sometimes blessed with unusual powers. Gabriel, for instance, can sense water and Isobel's old friend Alice can coax plants to grow. After making her bargain with the devil, Isobel becomes aware that she too has powers, but are they her own to do with as she pleases, or is she but a tool for the Old Man?

While Isobel and Gabriel spend a lot of time alone on the road together, there is refreshingly not a hint of romantic tension between them, only a growing friendship and the bond between an mentor and his charge. Gabriel has made his own bargain with the devil, putting himself in that man's debt. By taking Isobel around the territory, protecting her and showing her the ways of the riders, Gabriel will, at the end of a successfully completed mission, be given a measure of peace. He is a mysterious character, whose past is not fully revealed, but it is clear that for reasons not yet revealed to Isobel and the reader, he is bound to the Territory somehow, and the years he spent away in the United States came at a cost to him. He is connected to the land in a different way from Isobel, although I suspect the extent to which and the truth of his origin will be revealed in a later book.

This is a coming of age story, with Isobel having lived a sheltered life for her first sixteen years, wishing for more than she could handle and having to come to terms with what her bargain will actually entail. As the true extent of the danger is revealed, her initial instincts implore her to tuck her tail between her legs and flee back to Flood. This is obviously not an option, however, and as the story progresses, Isobel, cast adrift without any real guidance, has to try to figure out she can actually do in her capacity as the Left Hand of the devil and what responsibilities comes with the bargain she struck. While there are other powerful beings in the Territory, she acts for the Old Man and is therefore expected to figure out a solution. She may only be sixteen, and she may not have known what she actually asked for, but she's stuck in the bargain she made, and does a lot of growing up over the course of the story.

This is clearly the first book in a series, and while some of the danger has defeated and contained at the end of the story, there is clearly much left to do for Isobel and Gabriel and according to the author's website, the second book is out in October of this year. As I really liked the world-building, the quiet pacing, the various characters established and am intrigued to see where the story goes next, I'm absolutely going to keep my eye out for any sequels. This was a surprising and satisfying read.

Judging a book by its cover: It's not exactly the most exciting of covers, and I doubt I would have added this book to my TBR list and later bought it in an e-book sale, if there hadn't been so much positive hype about this book in the second half of last year. The cover isn't very flashy, but captures the content remarkably well. This is a slow-paced and introspective book and the many earth tones of the cover fit the story really well. The dusty ground, the sparse mountains. The dark-haired, plainly dressed girl, clearly meant to be Isobel, glowing with silver light to show her powers and connection with the Territory. Having all the writing be in silver, the colour of protection is also fitting. Now that I've read the book, I'm glad they didn't do something colourful and attention-grabbing with the cover. It's simple and elegant and very fitting.

Hey everyone, guess who finally got caught up with this series? My epic re-read is done and I can now join the ever-increasing (I'm just taking for granted that more people will be reading the books as the TV show makes them curious and/or desperate for more Jamie and Claire) ranks of people languishing in wait for the next book.

WARNING! SPOILERS FOR EARLIER BOOKS IN THE SERIES WILL FOLLOW, SO AVOID THIS PART IF YOU AREN'T CAUGHT UP. 

While this is the shortest book Gabaldon has written in about two decades, there is still a LOT of story here. As always, the book is split into multiple sections. In some, we follow Jamie and Claire and all their family members, friends, acquaintances and antagonists in the late 18th Century, where the American War of Independence is in full swing. Other parts focus on Jamie and Claire's daughter Brianna, who has more than enough to deal with in terms of her own challenges in the late 20th Century. Such as the fact that her husband, Roger MacKenzie Wakefield and one of his ancestors is off in the middle of the 18th Century, looking for Jem, their son, who they believed an unscrupulous neighbour kidnapped and took through the standing stones in search of the gold treasure Jamie Fraser hid in a previous book. Except Brianna fairly quickly locates the boy, but has to worry about the crazy dude and his accomplices who will stop at nothing to find the gold, and the certainty that Roger will not return from the past until he's found his son, a task that will prove utterly impossible.

Claire's joy that Jamie isn't dead after all is quickly turned to worry when Jamie promptly abducts her current husband, Lord John Grey, to use as a hostage to avoid being captured by the British troops in Philadelphia. After Lord John foolishly, but oh so honourably, confesses to having had carnal knowledge of Claire when they were both drunk and grief-stricken, Jamie proceeds to beat the snot out of his former best friend, then leaves him to fend for himself against a bunch of rebel soldiers. Badly done, Jamie! I was not best pleased at this. While worrying about both her husbands, and her step-son, Lord William Ellesmere, who just discovered his true parentage when coming face to face with Jamie Fraser, in the process of abducting William's adopted father, Claire also makes the acquaintance of Lord John's older brother, the Duke of Pardloe, newly arrived in the Colonies and looking for the various members his family (his son is recovering from surgery and his daughter wants to marry a Quaker). Trying to keep him distracted from looking for his brother or nephew proves easier than expected once he is incapacitated by a powerful asthma attack, which Claire, aided by Jamie's sister Jenny, helps him recover from. Much of the first half of the book is taken up with the Frasers and the Greys and their extended families being separated, and reuniting in various fashions while fighting in the Revolutionary war. I am amazed at the many near-death encounters the various members of the Fraser clan can survive. 

END SPOILERS

When it's been a while since I've read one of her books, I keep forgetting how very funny Gabaldon can be. I frequently laugh out loud when reading the books, as well as occasionally curse the characters for their poor decisions or roll my eyes at the prepostrous situations they find themselves in. Unlike in several of the previous books, I didn't think there were huge sections where nothing much at all happened, most of the plot strands felt purposeful and drove the story and the characterisation onward. The exception to this, to a certain extent, was Roger's jump back to the past. While I understand why Gabaldon probably found them fun to write, these chapters with all the mention of time travel back and forth and all over the place, all got a bit too wibbily wobbly timey wimey for my tastes. While it gave the readers a chance to see certain familiar characters from earlier in the series again and in a slightly new light, I was mainly just bored and wanting to get back to other characters in other times when reading these bits. 

If you've made it through the previous seven books in the series, I don't entirely see why you wouldn't read this as well. I agree with most of the other reviews I've read of this book that it's probably the best since Voyager. It's got its fair share of historical cameos (George Washington. Benedict Arnold. Benjamin Franklin, you get the gist). There are weddings, funerals, babies being born, people dying, people being taken prisoner, people escaping, Claire performing some truly grisly medical procedures, time travel, battles and wonderful quiet family moments. We reconnect with the characters we already know and get to know several new ones. Whatever you do, do not choose this as their first Gabaldon book. If you want to experience these massive books and get to know its huge cast of fasciating characters, start at the beginning with Outlander.

Disclaimer! If you haven't read the previous six books in the series, there will be minor spoiler in this review. Proceed at your own risk. 

Having finally completed my epic re-read of the previous books in the series at a page count total that is frankly obscene, I finally got to read a new to me Diana Gabaldon. When this book first came out in 2009, I just didn't have the energy to expend on re-reading the whole series to catch up and I decided to just put it off. With book eight in the series being published earlier this year, the very entertaining TV series making me remember what I love so much about Gabaldon's writing and the excellent online company/support group I am part of over on Facebook to discuss the books with, I was a lot more motivated to get through the series now. Yet it still took me more than a month to get through this. 

There is so much I love about Gabaldon's writing. Jamie and Claire have been part of my life for a very long time, and I generally find most of the stuff involving them very interesting. But since pretty much book 3, these books aren't really just the continuing adventures of Jamie and Claire Fraser in the 18th Century. There's Brianna and Roger and their kids, now back in Scotland in the early 1980s (which I'm freaking out about a bit, because that's within MY lifetime). There is Jamie's best friend, Lord John Grey, who, when he's not trying to figure out why his niece is pretending to be madly in love with his stepson and hell bent on going to America to be reunited with him, goes about doing not much of anything obviously important or interesting for two thirds of this book. There's said stepson, Jamie's illegitimate offspring, William, the Eight Earl of Ellesmere, who is now a soldier in the British Army. He gets recruited for spy missions, but doesn't seem very good at it. He travels to Canada and back. There are letters between him and his stepfather which may be super interesting for people who are a lot more into the American War of Independence than I am, but to me, it was the literary equivalent of watching paint dry. So much boring.

Jamie and Claire have decided to go to Scotland to fetch Jamie's printing press. Jamie absolutely does not want to get involved in the war, because doing so might mean that he will face his son on the battlefield. The Frasers bring along their nephew, young Ian MacKenzie, because Jamie swore to his sister that he would bring the lad home, and while it's taken quite a long time, and Ian has both been adopted by a Native American tribe, married, divorced and experienced the loss of a child in that time, it would still be good for him to be reunited with his parents. Many many complications arise on their way. It again takes them the best end of the book to actually arrive in Scotland, but because much of their story was action packed and dramatic, I have no real complaint about their sections.

In the future, Roger and Bree have bought Lallybroch and are trying to make a home there. Bree gets a job working for the Scottish hydro-electric board, and Roger debates whether he wants to become a minister after all. They have a stash of letters written to them by Bree's parents, so they can follow along in the continuing adventures of Jamie and Claire, while worrying because they keep ending up in historically significant places and close to or in the midst of important events. Roger is trying to put down everything they know about time travel in writing and their family are settling in nicely when they have a very unexpected visitor about the same time as it is obvious that someone in the village not only knows about the gold Jamie and Claire hid way back in the 18th Century, but are willing to go to rather extreme steps to get to it.

As I said, far more of the book than I cared about is devoted to young William Ransom and Lord John Grey. I love Lord John, he's a great supporting character. I laugh every time I think about how Bree tried to coerce him into marriage. Reading about him in London, talking to his brother about irrelevant family matters, or travelling to France to speak to uninteresting individuals or generally just worrying about the safety of his immediate or extended family was super dull. Reading about William was even more boring, and as this was the first time I read the book, I had no idea which bits I could skim or even skip (now I know). There are seriously multiple chapters devoted to William lost in a swamp, deliriously wandering. Not cool, Diana Gabaldon, not cool. He does eventually have his life saved by young Ian in said swamp, but really, there are better ways those two characters could cross paths.

Not content with a supporting character gallery into double figures already, Gabaldon also introduces some new individuals in this book. William's cousin Dottie seems pretty spunky, for all that she's the sheltered daughter of a Duke. It's very obvious to the reader early on that her and William's story about being madly in love is a clever fiction, but it takes much of the book for the reader to discover why Dottie would go to such lengths to get herself to America. Young Ian, who loved and lost his Native American wife, falls in love again with a Quaker, Rachel Hunter. She and her brother Denzell, who is a doctor, join the Continental army as healers and I very much enjoyed everything with them.

I would have rated this book 3 stars based on the first two thirds, but then things really start coming together and becoming super exciting in the last third. It's quite telling that it took me more than a month to read the first two thirds, and about two days to get through the last third. Jamie and Claire finally make it to Scotland. We get to see Jenny and Ian again, and young Ian is reunited with his family. William and young Ian are both clearly a bit in love with Rachel Hunter. There is quite a lot of interaction between William, Ian, Claire and even Jamie. The bits having to do with the Battle of Saratoga were actually quite exciting. While they're in Scotland, Claire discovers that one of Fergus and Marsali's children desperatey needs surgery, so she returns alone to America. There are heart-breaking confirmed deaths, dramatic presumed deaths, dangerous surgeries being performed successfully, lovers reunited, terrible vengeance nearly wreaked, surprise time travellers from the past, abductions, marriages of convenience, long kept family secrets revealed - so much awesome and drama in only a few hundred pages. Why did I have to spend so much time reading about William in a swamp, Diana, when you are capable of such great things? Why not edit your books more!?!

With so many characters and storylines, Gabaldon also gets to have multiple cliffhangers towards the end of her book, making me really very excited for book 8. I'm now glad that I waited as long as I did to catch up, because (once I am done reading the books I need to complete my various reading challenges) I can go straight into Written in My Own Heart's Blood, which has been rated very highly by those Cannonballers who have already read it, and also appears to be only about 850 pages long, so the shortest book in the series for ages. Due to the excellent ending of this book, I'm now all anticipation.

This is the sixth book in the Outlander series, and really not the place to start reading. You will have missed out on literally thousands of pages of plot developments, intrigue and characterisation. If you are interested in checking out the series (which thanks to the current TV show, I suspect more and more might be), start at the beginning with Outlander. 

Ok, where do I even begin to summarise the plot here. The mass market paperback is over 1400 pages long and the action spans at least three years of story. The book starts in 1772, with the beginning of the American Revolution right around the corner, and as such, there is rebellion afoot. Jamie Fraser knows what is coming thanks to his wife, daughter and son-in-law, all time travellers from the mid-20th Century. He needs to make sure he doesn't get arrested for treason against the British Crown (again), but doesn't exactly want to declare for King George either. At one point, Claire is kidnapped by bandits who want the location of the Fraser's still. That section, and the following rescue (I'm NOT going to spoiler tag a book that came out in 2006 - also, Claire is the protagonist of the whole series, big surprise she doesn't get killed by her abductors), makes for uncomfortable reading. Stephen Bonnet still pops up every so often like a malevolent mushroom to make life difficult for the assorted Frasers. Fergus and Marsali and their ever-increasing brood of children move away from Fraser's Ridge after it becomes obvious that Fergus really isn't cut out to be a farmer and needs a change in careers. Brianna and Roger work on having another child and Roger trains to become a minister. Towards the latter half of the book, there is a terrible betrayal of trust, when Jamie is suddenly accused of fathering a young woman's child. Shortly after, the pregnant woman winds up murdered in Claire's garden. Will Jamie and Claire be able to prove their innocence?

I read this book when it first came out, and it turns out, I barely remembered a single detail of plot, with the exception of Claire's abduction (although even that wasn't exactly clear in my mind) and the murder in the latter half of the book. Apart from that, I may as well have been reading the book for the first time. So much of the story came as a complete surprise to me, to the point where I was wondering if I'd made up the hazy details I could recall until I got to the relevant parts of the story. Parts of the book are extremely entertaining and well plotted, and I would rate them 4 stars or higher. But just as with The Fiery Cross, this book is just so big, and there is so MUCH happening and quite a lot of it is just not all that interesting and drags the rest of the reading experience down. I have yet to read the next two books in the Outlander series, specifically because when I last read this book, I was so bored by the end that I just couldn't bear the thought of reading any more Gabaldon. Luckily, I liked it a lot more re-reading and am now quite excited to catch up with books 7 and 8 in the coming months. 

This is book 5 in the Outlander series, and really NOT the place to start reading these books. By this point, some of the principal characters have grown to middle age and have children and grandchildren. If you're interested, say because the TV series is coming to Starz in August, start at the beginning with Outlander. Standard spoiler-warning spiel applies. If you've not read the first four books in the series, I cannot be held responsible for any spoilers you may or may not find in this review.

So - the plot. There really is rather a lot of it, but possibly not as much as you'd think for a book this huge, spanning years worth of story. It's 1771 and Jamie Fraser along with his family are at the Gathering, a huge, well gathering of Scottish clansmen in North Carolina. Jamie Fraser's family at this point consists of his wife Claire, his daughter Brianna, Brianna's fiancee Roger (all three of the afore-mentioned time-travellers born originally in the 20th Century), Brianna's son Jem (paternity as of yet uncertain), his adopted son Fergus, a former French street urchin, Fergus' wife Marsali (also Jamie's step-daughter) and their children. Bree and Roger are to be wed at the Gathering, as is Jamie's aunt Jocasta. However, the priest is arrested and carted off, leading to Jocasta's wedding being postponed, and Bree and Roger's being performed by a Protestant minister, much to the chagrin of the very Catholic Fraser-patriarch.

Once there have been weddings and christenings and servants have been acquired, the Frasers all travel back to their homestead and Jamie and Claire set their affairs in order before going to gather up volunteers. There are Regulators protesting against the rule of the British, and Jamie has been tasked with the Governor to fight them as the Colonel of the local Militia. Initially, they avoid any direct fighting, but later on, there is a battle, with very dire effects for some of the extended Fraser family. Over the course of the massive book, Jocasta Cameron finally gets married on her lavish plantation at River Run, but the festivities is marred by a murder, and Jamie and Claire play amateur detectives when they're not busy getting it on in the shrubberies. Seriously, they might be middle aged, but there is certainly nothing wrong with their libidos.

There is also a subplot involving the search for the Fraser's current nemesis, the dastardly Stephen Bonnet. There are also villainous types wanting to find long-lost French gold, Claire's attempts to cultivate penicillin, Roger's attempts to learn to shoot straight and re-learn his singing, the mystery of Jem's true paternity and a number of other story lines throughout the book. It is without a doubt, the longest book I own and/or have ever read. The only book I have that even comes close to rivalling it, is the next in the series, A Breath of Snow and Ashes. Diana Gabaldon does a LOT of research, and really really likes to show it all off. Most of the time, I love the characters dearly and love spending time with them. If the entire book was them getting into what Mrs. Julien is so fond of calling "the perils of Pauline", it would be a dreadfully tedious book, as it would if everything was the day to day minutiae of their lives in Frontier North Carolina.

I like the blend of everyday and action, what gets to me is that there seems to have been NO attempts at editing any of it out. If I recall correctly, a lot of the characters introduced in this book and a lot of the minor and seemingly insignificant events come back in a big way later, but as I was forcing myself through yet another seemingly pointless chapter consisting mainly of Bree's dream journal, I was hard pressed to see why some of it hadn't been edited out. The important character moments get drowned in the boredom of slogging through chapters with no clear purpose except to bulk out the page count some more. This is not the 19th Century, where authors were paid by the word and books were encouraged to be as big as possible because they were the only sources of entertainment during the long dark winters. I would have greatly preferred it if Gabaldon and her editors had removed a few hundred pages from this book, so I could have enjoyed the time I spent with characters I care deeply about without wanting to throw the book (or in this case, my trusty Reader, because really, I'm not getting the arm strain of actually carrying the physical book) at the wall. This is, upon re-reading, so far my absolute least favourite of the series, but it still gets a rating of 3.5 because the bits that are good, are extremely good. You just have to get through a lot of chapters to get to them.