Week 43 Review: Voyager

From Goodreads:
From the author of the breathtaking bestsellers Outlander and Dragonfly in Amber, the extraordinary saga continues. Their passionate encounter happened long ago by whatever measurement Claire Randall took. Two decades before, she had traveled back in time and into the arms of a gallant eighteenth-century Scot named Jamie Fraser. Then she returned to her own century to bear his child, believing him dead in the tragic battle of Culloden. Yet his memory has never lessened its hold on her... and her body still cries out for him in her dreams.

Then Claire discovers that Jamie survived. Torn between returning to him and staying with their daughter in her own era, Claire must choose her destiny. And as time and space come full circle, she must find the courage to face the passion and pain awaiting her...the deadly intrigues raging in a divided Scotland... and the daring voyage into the dark unknown that can reunite or forever doom her timeless love.

My Review:
I loved reading this book so much! I mean, I'm kinda addicted to Jamie and Claire's story between the show and the books, and yeah, just addicting, I just had to read it! And I loved it so much! I mean, so much happens, because it's 1000 pages long, of course a lot of things happen!

Comparing the plots of these 3 books, so far, Voyager is most like Outlander, in that it's more chronological, as much as a time travelling series can be! The beginning, starting with Jamie after Culloden, and then bits of Claire and her group finding out his journey, each step getting to see how it is for Jamie and Gray, who's with him. And then Claire with Jamie, mostly, for the rest of the book!

The main mystery is, the treasure that was meant for Prince Charles. The $50,000 that was promised, by the duke. And that Jamie knows where it is. Oh, and the various lives that Jamie lives as a printer, a smuggler, printing legitimate things, and also seditious things, and then smuggling in alcohol. Combined with the fact that he was/is a Jacobite traitor, in the eyes of the English, that makes him a pretty big pay day for whomever catches him!

Loved Claire and Robert's theory about the loch monster-that there's a time travelling hole like the one that Claire went through, like Claire says, prehistoric creatures tend to look like monsters, it would account for different creatures, and how they could back to their own time, and how there might not be one in the lake. Love this theory! So awesome!

So there's two characters that Claire thinks are too old to be alive-Jared, and Ned Gowan, and yeah, when she expresses her thoughts that they're alive, she gets this sayings that it'll take some part of the work that they do (being put in a barrel, getting the ax) for them to actually die. I enjoyed that!

And then there's Gellis, who blackmailed Dougal into letting her live, and she comes into play in a weird, unexpected place, and then add in Lord John Gray-who married the sister of the mother of Jaimie's son, yeah, life is very complicated there, even if they've just arrived!

And then Marsali and Fergus's wedding, which was just hilarious, from the people attending, to the one part, where Father Fogden tries to marry her to the cook, Murphy (who Fogden's dog was trying to "copulate" with his wooden leg) and then Maitland, before being shown that it was Fergus she was marrying!

And the ending, landing in America, where while not where they were intending to go, is a good place for them to end up, they can go by their own names of Jamie and Claire Fraser, and yeah, have a good life, though a busy one, what with another 5 more books after this one!

Favourite lines: "He was dead. However, his nose throbbed painfully, which he thought odd in the circumstances." This is so funny, no wonder it won a award as the best opening line in a novel! "Memory flooded back, and he groaned aloud He had been mistaken. This was hell. But James Fraser was unfortunately not dead, after all." Nope, and it's a good thing, too! "Would the man not hurry a bit?" In a hurry to die, Jamie? "...and his bowels, not having the resignation of his higher facilities, were twitching with a gurgling dread." and "His bowels gave another long, rumbling gurgle; they didn't think much of the notion, either." Yeah, the thought of a painful death can do that too a person! "Look, man, either shoot me or go away, aye? I'm ill." So impatient! "Did he have to be awake to be shot?" Probably not, unless they're sadistic, which it's not looking like! "I willna tell anyone if you don't." Because you'll be dead. In a hurry, are you? "I dinna want to go home! I want to be shot!" That's a strange thing to want! "No, but I wrote my request on the Balliol College letterhead, and made tactful reference to Mr. Cheesewrite, my old tutor, who does know Linklater." Ah, the little politics that aren't government! "First I'm a Sassenach, and now I'm a dogsbody. What do you Scots call people when you're trying to be nice?" Very needed question, having been called 2 different names in under, like, 10 minutes! "Aye, well, they eat frogs, ye know. And snails. I suppose maybe afterbirth isna so strange, considering." OK, gross! And creepy! "That's fast work for Duncan. Does either o' them know it yet?" Looking back at Jenny's matchmaking, I'd say not! "I think God doesna suffer much from the scurvy, Major." Yeah, I'd think so! "She picked up the book, looked at it in that helpless way so many females affect and said, 'Oh, Countess! You are so courageous to attack a novel of such stupendous size. I fear I should never dare to start so lengthy a book myself.' To which my mother replied, 'Don't worry about it for a moment, my dear; you wouldn't understand it anyway.'" Which is a bit mean, but so funny! I probably wouldn't understand it, but I'd love to read it-I love long books! "'If you found a sixteen-year-old s**ting himself with fear a worthy foe, Mr. Fraser, then it is little wonder that the Highland army was defeated.' 'A man that doesna s**t himself with a pistol held to his head, Major, has either no bowels, or no brains.'" So thus, a worthy foe! "Grey had shrugged and taken the bed, while Fraser, without gesture or glance, had wrapped himself in his threadbare cloak and lain down before the hearth. Scratching an assortment of bits from fleas and bed bugs, Grey thought that Fraser might well have had the better end of the sleeping arrangements." Yeah, me too! "'Oh! Oh please! You can't! I don't want you to!' [Fine time to start making protests, I thought.]" Yeah, a little late! "Let me guess. Valdez just teased aside the membrane of her innocence?" and "It had to be that one, or maybe the one on page 73, where he laves her pink mounds with his hungry tongue." This are just hilarious-I wonder if they're actually books!! "My coherent first thought was 'It's raining. This must be Scotland.'" Having never been there, only in books, I can only agree! "Bent over it, his back turned to me, was Jamie." Her first sight of him in over 20 years!!!!! "I had thought him pale already. Now all vestiges of color drained from his face. His eyes rolled up and he slumped to the floor in a shower of papers and oddments that had been sitting on his press-he fell rather gracefully for such a large man, I thought abstractedly." What a warm welcome, what with the shock and all! "I was afraid I'd lost hold altogether and pissed myself, but it's all right. I've just sat on the alepot." That is way better than the alternative! "I can tell a hawk from a handsaw, when the wind sets north by nor'west, and a sweet, plumb lassie from a salt-cured ham, too, appearances notwithstanding." Yes, good skill, telling food from women! "Daddy! Who us that woman?" Oh, Jamie, you made a really big mistake! "Unmanly? With two wives? Ha!" Yeah, my thoughts, too! "He'll be going up to the hill; he goes there, if he's troubled. That or he gets drunk wi' Ian. The hill's better." Yeah, I'd say it would be! "Blood arrogant, selfish, overbearing...Scot!" Yeah, probably shouldn't make her mad! "...ignoring the weather with the stoic nonchalance of a trueborn Scot." Ah, rain. So cute! "Oh God, oh Christ, oh Jesus Lord God Almighty!" Shock, huh? "I'm a doctor, not a veterinarian. And if you didn't want me back, what was all that you were saying before you realize I was real, hm?" Your speech doesn't match previous speech! "You have a doctor right here.  If you pass out from the strain, I'll know what to do about it." Including putting more needles into his butt?  "On the other hand, Jenny, ye ken guns are scarcer than hen's teeth in the Highlands. I dinna think Hobart's going to come and ask to borrow my own pistol to shoot me with." No, I don't think he will! "The notion being that Hobart's meant to come round and expunge the slight upon his sister's honor by expunging me." and "The man couldna stick a pig without cutting off his own foot." Yeah, sounds like it won't go well-for the other guy! "What I want, is my breakfast. D'ye meant to feed me, or d'ye mean to wait until I faint from hunger, and then hide me in the priest hole 'til Hobart leaves?" That'd be pretty funny, awesome plan! "Oh no, Mam! It's worse. He's brought a lawyer!" And how come that's worse? "'It's only that it's a good deal easier to do something that's a bit dangerous than it is to wait and worry while someone else does it.' 'Ha. So now you know what it's like being married to you." Which is justice, indeed! "Jamie was lying on his side, wedged into one of those like a snail into its shell; one of which beasts he strongly resembled at the moment, being a pale and viscid gray in color, with streaks of green and yellow that contrasted nastily with his red hair." Ah, poor Jamie, the seasickness! "He never thinks he will be so ill. He always is, and yet every time he must set foot on a ship, he insists that it is only a matter of will; his mind will be the master, and he will not allow his stomach to be dictating his actions. Then within ten feet of the deck, he has turned green." He's a Fraser. They're stubborn! "Jamie showed no signs of being about to fulfil Jared's heartening prophecy and spring to his feet, suddenly accustomed to the motion." Well, that's too bad! "In terms of his role as guardian of his stepdaughter's virtue, Jamie himself was a negligible force at the moment." That is very true! "In the usual fashion of a man feeling unwell, Jamie had managed to arrange his surroundings to be as depressing and uncomfortable as possible." Well, that's a bit mean to everyone else, Jamie! "Dinna mention the word 'breakfast' to me." Grumpy! "And it can cause the testicles to become tangled round each other inside the scrotum, and cuts off the circulation there. If that happens, the only thing to do, usually, is to amputate before gangrene sets in." Awesome threat, Claire! "He scowled at the picture again, and I thought it was fortunate that neither Bree nor Rodney was present. I had seen Jamie as lover, husband, brother, uncle, laird, and warrior, but never before in his guise as a ferocious Scottish father. He was quite formidable." And kinda pretty awesome! "Stand up straight and try not to get fat." Well, that's quite a closer on a letter! "'What have ye done to Innes, Sassenach? He's hiding in the starboard head, and says ye told him he mustna come out at all until he'd s**t.' 'I didn't tell him that exactly. I just said if he hadn't moved his bowels by tonight, I'd give him an enema of slippery elm.'" Love this, and how she calls it the Oatmeal War! "I am a fool. I have spent twenty years longing to have ye in my bed, and within a month of having ye back again, I've arranged matters so I that I canna even kiss ye without sneakin' behind a hatch over, and even then, half the time I look round to find Fergus looking cross-eyed down his nose at me, the little bastard! And no one to blame for it but my own foolishness. What did I think I was doing?" Protecting your step-daughter? "How do you hear someone lust?" Very good question! "Christ, be careful wi' that, Sassenach! It's no going to be ye any good to get my breeks off, and ye geld me in the process!" Nope, not at all! "What do you mean, how dare I do something harebrained? You idiot, what possessed you to follow me?" Yeah, especially after she already escaped, even if you didn't know that? "The new captain of the Artemis was standing in the middle of his cabin, eyes closed, and completely naked, blissfully scratching his testicles." Uh, OK, Jamie! "Well, it was simple enough. I told the soldiers that as soon as the ship was launched, we'd gather everyone on the deck, and at my signal, they were to fall on the crew and push them into the hold. Only Fergus had mentioned it to the crew, ye see; so when each soldier came aboard, two the crewmen snatched him by the arms while a third gagged him, bound his arms, and took away his weapons. Then we pushed all of them into the hold. That's all." Quite a great plan! "And we'll see what sort of noise it is ye don't make then, Sassenach." Love this, that she was saying that she didn't make the noises that he said she did when he was voicing his fantasy of what's going to happen ASAP! So cute! "Laoghaire was not going to be pleased at hearing that her eldest daughter had eloped with a one-handed ex-pickpocket twice her age. Her maternal feelings were unlikely to be assuaged by hearing that the marriage had been preformed in the middle of the night on a West Indian beach by a disgraced-if not actually defrocked-priest, witnessed by twenty-five seamen, ten French horses, a small flock of sheep-all gaily beribboned in honor of the occasion-and a King Charles spaniel, who added to the generally festive feeling by attempted to copulate with Murphy's wooden leg at every opportunity. The only thing that could make things worse, in Laoghaire's view, would be to hear that I had participated in the ceremony." Which sounds quite hilarious! "This man and this woman. Marry them, Father. Now. Please." Go, Jamie! "Fraser. Fergus Claudel Fraser." Good name for her, thanks to Jamie! Love that it's Fergus, the name that Jamie gave him in France, Claudel, his original name, and Fraser, he's family to Jamie! "...to find to my surprise that the ball had in fact not plowed a furrow through his scalp as I had thought. Instead, it had pierced the skin just above his hairline and-evidently-vanished into his head. There was no sign of an exit wound. Unnerved by this, I prodded his scalp with increasing agitation, until a sudden cry from the patient announced that I had discovered the bullet. There was a large, tender lump on the back of his head. The pistol ball had travelled under the skin, skimming the curve of his skull, and come to est just over his occiput. 'Jesus H.  Christ!' I exclaimed. I felt it again, unbelieving, but there it was. 'You always said your head was solid bone, and I'll be damned if you weren't right. She shout you point-blank, and the bloody ball bounced off your skull!'" That is freaking, and very lucky, just love this! "'As long as it's land, Duncan, I'm no verra choosy about where.' 'Aye? And her I thought ye'd settled for sure on a sailor's life, Mac Dubh; ye're sae canty on deck. Why, ye havena puked once in the last twa days!' 'That's because I havena eaten anything in the last twa days. I dinna much care if the island we find first is English, French, Spanish or Dutch, but I should be obliged if ye'd find one with food, Duncan.'" Yes. Food. Good choice! "Man you, Sassenach! Damn you! I swear if ye die on me, I'll kill you!" A bit redundant, but OK! "I've sand in my teeth. And my ears. And my nose, and the crack of my arse, too, I shouldna wonder."" That must be uncomfortable! "In that case, ma'am, my name is Jamie Fraser. And this is Claire, my wife." Such a great ending, and they get to use their real names, yeah!

This was such a fantastic book, next to read the Lord John Gray series before reading Drums of Autumn! I can't wait!

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Series: Outlander #3
Read: October 23rd-24th, 2014
Source: Own-Mom Owns
Reason Why: Really enjoying this series, and it's a Historical Fiction 2014 Book, Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2014 Book, and WTC Book!
Publisher: Dell
Published: August 3rd 1995

5/5 Hearts

5/5 Books

5/5 Stars