Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Book Review: Drums of Autumn

Drums of Autumn (Outlander Series #4) by Diana Gabaldon
Book Details:
Title: Drums of Autumn
Author: Diana Gabaldon
1997, Dell
ISBN: 978-0-440-22425-9
Genre: Historical Fiction, Romance


Book Summary (from the back cover):
It began at an ancient Scottish stone circle. There, a doorway, open to a select few, leads into the past - or the grave. Dr. Claire Randall survived the extraordinary passage, not once but twice. Her first trip swept her into the arms of Jamie Fraser, an eighteenth-century Scot whose love for her became a legend - a tale of tragic passion that ended with her return to  the present to bear his child. Her second journey, two decades later brought them together again in the American colonies. But Claire had left someone  behind in the twentieth century. Their daughter, Brianna...


Now Brianna has made a disturbing discovery that sends her to the circle of stones and a terrifying leap into the unknown. In search of her mother and the father she has never met, she is risking her own future to try to change history ... and to save their lives. But as Brianna plunges into an uncharted wilderness, a heartbreaking encounter may strand her forever in the past ... or root her in the place she should be, where her heart and soul belong ...


My Review:
I LOVED this book in the series. Interestingly, the first couple books seemed to only tell the story from Claire's point of view. As we get farther along in the series, more and more of the characters are coming into their own and we are hearing their voices, although only Claire speaks in the first person. I am really enjoying hearing these different points of view.


Spoiler Alert!
I decided there is just no way I can keep from giving things away in this review. I loved this book. I could kind of predict some of what was going to happen. I knew Brianna was going back to find her mother and father and that Roger would follow. I figured she would get trapped somehow. Nothing unfolded like I expected though. 


I was upset by the fact that wee Ian was basically lost to the Indians because I really liked his character. I can't really see how he can be recovered back into the story, but the author does seems to be a master of bringing characters in and out of the storyline, so who knows? I was pleasantly surprised at Lord John's role in this story and liked him all the better for it.


I have decided that I get a lot more frustrated with Claire and Brianna's characters than I do with Jamie or Roger. For some reason I feel like they tend to not use their heads all the time. I realized that they are modern women living in the past, but you'd think they'd kind of figure things out over time - like what is and is not appropriate for the time period and WHY you shouldn't flaunt that you're different. Maybe Roger is different because he was a historian of the time period, but so was Claire's husband and Brianna's father, soooo...?


I was happy the story ended nicely wrapped up and without a cliffhanger because I have to wait for my friend to finish the next one and I have a small stack of OTHER books to read in the meantime. =)


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