Saturday, November 8, 2014

Week 45 Review: Drums of Autumn

From Goodreads:
The magnificent saga continues....

It began in Scotland, at an ancient stone circle. There, a doorway, open to a select few, leads into the past—or the grave. 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 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 frontier America. 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 stone circle 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:
Oh,, how I loved reading this book! We get some more Jamie POV, that isn't just his story of the times that he's away from Claire, like in Voyage, well, technically, some of them, he's not with her, but yeah, we got all 4 of the Fraser's, really, POV's-Claire, of course, Jamie, Brianna, and Rogers. Which was great!

I really enjoyed that Brianna got to met with Jenny's family, her family, because a) I don't think she'll get another chance, and b) Brianna hasn't really met very much family before, and to have a big family for an only child, that seems pretty important!

Jamie seems to have a silly reaction to news about Brianna, making the messenger think his reaction was negative, even if it's positive-her name, and her height! Which is just so cute! I loved it so much! Such an awkward side to Jamie!

Everything that happened with the various Native tribes, for Jamie, Claire, and Young Ian, well, how they pretty much wrapped up, between the one guy taking the scalps of 3 ladies that were their friends, and then having to give up Ian to get back Roger, yeah.

But I loved how in this book, everything came full circle with them being in the city for a friend's hanging, and end up meeting his son at the gathering, years later. And in the middle of that, save another from being hanged, and then he robs them, and then rapes Brianna. But then he gives her the diamond, for money to take care of the baby that may or may not be his, seeing as he raped her 2 days after she married (kinda, but not really, hand-fasting, and they played a bit loose with the rules) Roger. Yeah.

Favourite lines: "You're a walking inducement to harlots. Stick by me; I'll protect you." Go, Claire! "She'd draw pictures of sperm on the blackboard, all racing toward this huge egg with leers on their faces." That's weird, Claire! And as Rodger later says, there's a question as to if sperm even have faces! "'What is it that makes every man ye meet want to take off his breeks within five minutes if meetin' ye?' 'Well, if you don't know, my dear, no one does. I seem to have found us a boat. And what have you been up to this morning?'"  Ha, ha! So good! "While I was familiar with the eighteenth-century willingness to eat anything that could be physically overpowered and dragged to the table, I didn't not subscribe to the mania for presenting wild dishes as though they had not in fact undergone the intermediary processes of being killed and cooked before making their appearance at dinner. I thus viewed the large sturgeon with which I sat eyeball-to-eyeball with a marked lack of appetite. Complete not only with eyes but with scales, fins, and tail, the three-foot fish road majestically on waves of roe in aspic, decorated with a vast quantity of tiny spiced crabs, which had been boiled whole and scattered artistically over the platter." I'm with Claire, that doesn't sound very yummy! "But perhaps we should change the subject. After all, speaking of taxes at the Governor's table is rather like talking of rope in the house of the hanged, isn't it?" A bit morbid, but of the times, probably true! "Discretion is the better part of valor. Not that I've ever met a Scot who seemed to think so." I think Jamie is so, sometimes! "...grimly counting sheep-who disobliged me by being Scottish sheep, cantering merrily through a kirkyard, leaping the gravestones with gay abandon." Seeing as that's part of the trouble, not helpful! "He's much sneakier then I thought. Practically Scottish." Hilarious! "She seems to have quite a taste for Camerons. Is there something special about them as a clan-beyond being accident-prone, I mean?" Yeah, at least 3 husbands that are Camerons who have died of accidents! "That's a skunk? Why, that's no but a bittie wee stinkard like a polecate! Phew! And here I thought it was a dangerous huge beastie." We know, you and Jamie went for weapons! So funny! "As all wished to play Savage, Young Jamie, Kitty's husband Georgie and myself were pressed into service as the Highlander regiment, and obliged to suffer attack by Tomahawk (Kitchen spoons and ladles) and other forms of enthusiastic assault, we eassying meanwhile a valiant defence with our broadswords (pieces of lath and willow twigs). I put a stop to the Suggestion that the thatch of the dove-cote be set afire with flaming arrows, but was obliged in the end to submit to being Scalped. I flatter myself that I survived this Operation in better case than did the chickens." This letter that Ian sent, is just so funny! "I waved pleasantly after him, thinking how much I should enjoy sticking a fork into him, when the time came." That would be great-he's coming on to her, even though he knows she's married, and that between their ages, she could've been his mom! "We formed a small island of English in the midst of a sea of swirling Scots." Cool! "I always knew you had a gift for tongues. Didn't know you spoke frog, thought." Strange language to know, Jamie! "If William, Viscount Ashness, ninth Earl of Ellesmere, was not the very last very last person I had ever expected to see in the backwoods of North Carolina, he was certainly next to the last-King George was a trifle less likely to turn up on the doorstep, I supposed." This is funny! "I laid aside a half-finished pair of stockings Jamie was making for himself-striped, the show-off-and pulled out a heavy skein of fresh-dyed blue wool, still redolent with the heavy scents of it's dyeing." Love that a) Jamie and Ian can knit, and b) that Claire can't! "She survived. Not much of a sell point for a vacation spot, is it, though-'If you luck's in, you'll come back alive?'" Yeah, not very! "Claire has been recently much Interested by Conversation-if the term can be used for a Communication limited mostly to Gesticulations and the Making of Faces (she insists that I note here that she does not Make Faces, to which I reply that I am in Better Case to judge of the matter, being able to see the Face in question, which she is not) in Conversation with an old woman of the Indians, much Esteemed in this area as a Healer, who has Given her many such pants. In consequence, her fingers are Purple at present, which I find Most Decorative." Nice letter for Jenny, Jamie! And then, "None of us Died or suffered Ill-effects from Eating of this stew so Claire is likely right, Tomatoes are not Poison." Of course not, but they aren't for everybody! I personally hate them in all but ketchup and tomato sauce of pizza and spaghetti! "Bees? How can you hut bees?" Good question! "No matter how virulent Murchion's grudge might be, or how good his spies, I couldn't see his superiors allowing him to mount an armed expedition more than a hundred miles into the mountains, for the sole purpose of extirpating an illegal distillery whose total output was less than a hundred gallons a year." Yeah, not very cost productive! "'Do you know something, Da?' 'What's that?' 'You can't sing.' 'Aye, that's true. Shall I stop, then?' 'No.' 'D'ye ken something yourself, a leannan?' 'What's that, Da?' 'Ye weigh as much as a full-grown deer.' 'Shall I get off, then?' 'Of course not.'" This is such a sweet exchange! "Thou shalt not uncover thy father's nakedness." Out of context, it's funny. In context, Brianna bringing up Jack Randall, not so much! "I...ah...I...I-have-come-to-express-my-desire-to-ask-for-your-hand-in-the-blessed-sacrament-of-matrimony." Oh, Young Ian! So cute! Idiot Jamie for coming up with you proposing to Brianna!

I just absolutely loved this book so much, and yeah, while I won't read The Fiery Cross next week, because there is a a pretty big gap between each book being published, I really want to read it, so yeah!!

Author: Diana Gabaldon
Series: Outlander #4
Read: November 6th-7th, 2014
Source: Own
Reason Why: Loving this series! And it's a Historical Fiction 2014 Book, Prequel & Sequel Challenge 2014 Book and a WTC Book!
Publisher: Dell
Published: November 10th 1997
5/5 Hearts
5/5 Books
5/5 Stars

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