Soon after they move in, they discover a box of letters addressed to them from Jamie and Claire, and they read through these letters slowly, one at a time (as if anyone would ever do that – any real person in this situation would read all of the letters at once, right? Wouldn’t you?) to learn about what happened to their family after they returned to their own time.

Brianna and Roger move back to Scotland and purchase Lallybroch, Jamie Fraser’s family estate, raising their children not far from the circle of standing stones that first launched Claire into the eighteenth century seven long novels ago. These sections are actually really compelling, and I wish they had made up more of the book.

Brianna, Roger, and their children left the eighteenth century at the end of A Breath of Snow and Ashes, and portions of this novel concern their new life in the 1980’s. One of this novel’s few strengths is the fact that a lot changes in the lives of Jamie and Claire Fraser and their friends and family over its course. I’m so glad to be done with this book and with the series for a while, although I’m sure I’ll read the eighth and final book in the series when it comes out. Like The Fiery Cross, this novel is dull up until its last hundred pages, at which point it becomes insanely action-packed. And then there was An Echo in the Bone – not quite as horrible as The Fiery Cross, but still disappointing and at times just riddled with what seem to me to be rookie storytelling mistakes. A Breath of Snow and Ashes was the first book in the series that I finished and immediately wanted to begin reading the next book. Then A Breath of Snow and Ashes is really quite good – as good as the first four and maybe even the best of the series except for Voyager.

Then The Fiery Cross is fifteen hundred pages of pure tedium. Its first four novels ( Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voyager, and Drums of Autumn) are relatively consistent in quality, and what I mean by that is that they are generally engaging and entertaining in spite of occasional dull stretches.

An echo in the bone paperback