Written In My Own Heart's Blood by Diana Gabaldon
1778: France declares war on Great Britain, the British army leaves Philadelphia, and George Washington’s troops leave Valley Forge in pursuit. At this moment, Jamie Fraser returns from a presumed water grave to discover that his best friend has married Claire, Jamie’s wife; Jamie’s illegitimate son has discovered (to his horror) who his father really is; and Jamie’s beloved nephew, Ian, wants to marry a Quaker. Meanwhile, Claire and Jenny, Jamie’s sister, are busy picking up the pieces.
The Frasers can only be thankful that their daughter Brianna and her family are safe in twentieth-century Scotland. Or not. In fact, Brianna is searching for her own son, who was kidnapped by a man determined to learn her family’s secrets. Her husband, Roger, has ventured into the past in search of the missing boy… never suspecting that the object of his quest has not left the present. Now, with Roger out of the way, the kidnapper can focus on his true target: Brianna herself.
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I’ve been working on this series, slowly, one book every two or three years, since my second year of University (the year the show first released) and I FINALLY finished the final published book in the series (right in time for the release of the next one later this year) and it is such a relief! But I’m also a bit heartbroken that I now, like the rest of the world, must wait patiently for book release dates to get more of my “Outlander Fix”. The journey has been tumultuous and the plots have branched out into so many directions that I worried it would be hard to find direction in this book but I think Diana does a very good job of tying it all together in this one. The last book before this, An Echo in the Bone, was definitely a “filler” novel but it set up the scene for this book perfectly so we could get into the drama and action as soon as we open to the first chapter. This book lacked a lot of the good Scottish humour that is present in the other books (especially in book 6) but still had some fantastic one-liners and some AMAZING insults I’ve now adopted into my vocabulary. Humour aside, I think this book brought back the typical characteristics of these beloved characters that seemed missing from the last novel and I was glad to welcome the familiarity back. One thing I can say for sure, this book made me extremely excited for Book 9 to be released.
Like always, Diana’s world building and immersive writing automatically transports me back in time anytime I open the page to one of her novels, this one was no different, and even though there were quite a few plots going on at the same time, she still managed to get that day-to-day lifestyle squeezed in to fully immerse the reader snugly in the 18th century. The dialogue is always fantastic and I’m still so astounded at the amount of research Diana puts into each book. She must spend SO MUCH time just looking things up to be as historically accurate as possible, and when you’re covering a series of 10 or so books all based around huge events in human history that’s a daunting task. Props to her on the accuracy of her portrayals from the big battles to the little everyday life things like dental practices in the late 1700s.
My absolute favourite part of this book was Bree and Roger’s storylines. Unlike the last book where we jumped around quite a bit, their story was almost fully separated from Claire and Jamie’s which made it feel much more immersive. Roger’s journey to the past was eye opening with a lot of neat throwbacks and reminders of the original first two novels that felt so nostalgic but his adventure also had a really neat sense of mystery and lore because of the characters that he meets back then. Bree’s story, however, had me on the edge of my seat. I’ve never seen Outlander as something “thrilling” before but the entire time I read her chapters I was looking over my shoulder, triple checking my locks, and cowering on the couch. IT WAS SO GOOD. I honestly think that their plot was the main boost to this novel. The revolutionary war stuff was great and all but the story really came alive for Bree and Roger and the kids. I can’t wait to read more from them in the next book and find out how they ended up after all that happened to them in this last book.
The only thing I didn’t enjoy, like usual, is how many insignificant pages Diana dedicates to things that don’t matter. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy when she includes tidbits from Claire and Jamie’s daily life to make it feel more real and not always so dramatic, however sometimes she gets a bit too in depth into things that don’t matter. Like Claire’s surgeries for example. Great research, bit too much information. And I didn’t really get the point of the entire plot of their time in Georgia, it seemed so useless and there was a surgery Claire does there that left a very sour taste in my mouth. It left us with a muddy view of Claire’s viewpoints on women’s rights and made me extremely uncomfortable. It didn’t seem like the Claire we know, and this chapter was given so much attention that I can’t help but feel like it will be an important topic in the next book. Hopefully if it’s revisited this will clear up my questions. That aside, I think Diana did great in these little moments reminding us that trauma stays, it doesn't just go away, and Claire, through every small moment in this book is reminded of her "fragility" with flashbacks and nightmares about her abduction. Maybe this "reminder" is why Claire seems so much more hesitant about right and wrong in this book, her viewpoints have been warped by her experiences. I remain hopeful that we will revisit some of what was brought up in this book, in the next one to make things much more clear.
In the end, it was a great read, bit longer than need be but I still love diving into the world of the Frasers even after all this time. And the ending was so fabulous that I am waiting on pins and needles for the release of her next book later this year. I can’t wait! 3.5 stars for this one.