Duchess Nicole's Reviews > Dragonfly in Amber

"For I had come back, and I dreamed once more, in the cool air of the Highlands. And the choice of my dream still echoed through ears and heart, repeated with the sound of Brianna's sleeping breath."

For those of you who haven't read Outlander, I'd think any reviews for books further in the series would be spoiler-ish...mine included.

I'm sitting here dumbfounded, having just finished Dragonfly in Amber. I'm thinking about what to say in a review and trying to think back to the beginning of the book and it seems like years ago. So much has happened in the last 900 pages. Certainly, Jamie and Claire are vastly different people but so am I. I never knew I could forgive like this. Both Jamie and Claire do things in this book that, had this been any other 300 page Historical Romance or Historical Fiction, I'd have closed the book feeling angry and confused as to why an author would do that to her readers...why make her hero/heroine do such awful things to each other? Why overshadow the rest of the book by throwing in that two or three scenes that makes me question my loyalty toward them?

"Aye," he whispered, as though to himself, "I'm a big chap. big and strong. I can stand a lot. Yes, I can stand it." He whirled on me, shouting. "I can stand a lot! But just because I can, does that mean I must? Do I have to bear everyone's weakness? Can I not have my own?"

Why?

I know why, in this case. Because it made Jamie and Claire into such fallible humans, capable of such error and anger and stupidity...only to continue their lives and prove to also have such devotion, such dedication, loyalty, and this enormous love for each other. IT only truly becomes real to me when all aspects of their character are revealed, such as in this book. And this is only book two!

"Well, I'll tell ye, Sassenach, 'graceful' is possibly not the first word that springs to mind at thought of you." He slipped an arm behind me, on hand large and warm around my silk-clad shoulder.
"But I talk to you as I talk to my own soul," he said, turning me to face him. He reached up and cupped my cheek, fingers light on my temple.
"And, Sassenach," he whispered, "your face is my heart."



From the 1960's to eighteenth century France, to Scotland and the battles of Falkirk and Culloden, Dragonfly in Amber just blew my mind.

I could not help remembering one historian's description of the Highlanders' fate at Culloden - "the dead lay four deep, soaking in rain and their own blood."
The Highlanders, mismanaged and starving, but ferocious to the end, would be wasted in one decisive half-hour. They would be left to lie in heaps, bleeding in a cold April rain, the cause they had cherished for a hundred years dead along with them."

As I began reading, it was hard for me to admit what was plainly being told to me...Claire was no longer with Jamie in Scotland. No, for most of the book, she is relaying her tale of her adventures with Jamie during the Jacobite uprising over 200 years ago. These details are rich as ever, more political in the telling than Outlander was, and gives such insight into the way of life both for the aristocratic rich folks back then, but also the rabble, the workmen, the poor, the farmers, the normal people who only wanted to live their lives and raise their families and love their husbands and wives.

But men who grasp for more didn't much care for the lives of their peasants, and most everyone somehow became wrapped up in the games that kings played. Whether it was wives sending husbands and sons to war, the men themselves trotting off with pitchforks and rusty swords, the nurses and doctors and children and the list goes on. This nine hundred pages right here gives all of those details that you don't think about, and Gabaldon shoves them in your face until you can see nothing but.

And I can't help but feel such a sadness for the real men and women that this story shadows. It's such and intense feeling, to put the book down and research it on my own and realize that so much of this is true...minus the time travel, of course :D But it's hard to not dwell on the realities that are brought to light and the tragedies that played out, things that I'd never have thought of. And it is humbling...and it makes me feel guilty that I know so little of history. And I know, I know it's fiction. But what a remarkable talent to make me have all of these intense feelings, to cry for these people as if they were my own, if only for a little bit.


"I will find you," he whispered in my ear. "I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, tow hundred years without you - then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest."
His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.
"Lord, ye have me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well."

The beginning of this story was confusing and shocking and I didn't want to read it. It alludes to something that breaks my heart, and I just wanted to get to the good parts...forget about the current Claire and go back to eighteenth century Scotland. But if there is one thing that I can take from this book in particular, it is that the journey is what it's all about. I still have no idea how this will all turn out...I have no idea, in fact. The getting there is all the fun...and heartbreak...that I can take. Let the ratings speak for themselves and make your decision for you. To read or not to read? With millions upon millions of rave reviews, I think the decision is easy.

"D'ye think I don't know?" he asked softly. "It's me that has the easy part now. For if ye feel for me as I do for you - then I am asking you to tear out your heart and live without it."

Buddy read with Raquel and Anna :D Ladies, I don't think I could have made it through without you!!