Book Review: An Echo in the Bone (Finally!)

Book Details:
Title: An Echo in the Bone
Author: Diana Gabaldon
ISBN: 978-0-385-34246-9
2009, Bantam
Genre: Historical Fiction, Sci-Fi, Romance....


Summary:
Jamie Fraser is an eighteenth-century Highlander, an ex-Jacobite traitor, and a reluctant rebel in the American Revolution. His wife, Claire Randall Fraser, is a surgeon - from the twentieth century. What she knows of the future compels him to fight. What she doesn't know may kill them both.


With one foot in America and one foot in Scotland, Jamie and Claire's adventure spans the Revolution, from sea battles to printshops, as their paths cross with historical figures from Benjamin Franklin to Benedict Arnold.


Meanwhile, in the relative safety of the twentieth century, their daughter, Brianna, and her husband experience the unfolding drama of the Revolutionary War through Claire's letters. But the letters can't warn them of the threat that's rising out of the past to overshadow their family.


My Review:
Like all of these Outlander novels, it's hard to know where to even start with a review of this book. It is packed full with information, story lines and characters. I'm just going to try to break this down as simply as possible.
What I liked: 

• I heard some people didn't like this book in the series. I'm not sure why that is, but I'm thinking it may have been the way the author breaks up the book - following about five different story lines. Only Claire's story is told in the 1st person, which I think is interesting, but we also follow: Lord John Grey, William, Young Ian, Claire and Jamie, Brianna and Roger, and another couple - Quakers Denny and Rachel Hunter, who could could conceivably be lumped in with Ian.
• I personally like the fact that we are following so many characters because it prevents the author from getting stuck in long, boring, detailed passages, which she is prone to doing in past books.
• As always, there was always lots of action and adventure as well as lots of historical information. I feel like I'm getting a history lessen when I read these.
• I also liked that they made a trip back to Scotland to catch up with some of the characters left back there like Ian and Jenny.

What I didn't like: 

• There WAS one point where I got bogged down and thought I was going to get stuck about halfway through the book.
• All Lord John's intrigues throughout this book really confused me. There were certain points where I really had no idea what he was searching for, who the people he was talking to or what was going on there.
• Also, we learned about Fergus's history (which I liked), but that meant we were having to remember characters from the 2nd book! Seriously! I hadn't thought about those people in so long I almost couldn't remember what they were about.
• The ENDING! Oh my gosh! What a terrible cliff-hanger ending! People could be dead or lost forever, for all we know!

Overall, I think this was one of my favorites in the series. It moved along well and left you wanting to know what happens in the next book. I am a little bittersweet about it. I am happy to be done with these books for the meantime, it's taken me 8 months to read them all and I have a big stack in my TBR pile. But I'm slightly afraid that I will have forgotten what's going on by the time the 8th book comes out sometime next year.


Happy Reading!