3.5 stars
This is book 5 in the Outlander series, and really NOT the place to start reading these books. By this point, some of the principal characters have grown to middle age and have children and grandchildren. If you’re interested, say because the TV series is coming to Starz in August, start at the beginning with Outlander. Standard spoiler-warning spiel applies. If you’ve not read the first four books in the series, I cannot be held responsible for any spoilers you may or may not find in this review.
So – the plot. There really is rather a lot of it, but possibly not as much as you’d think for a book this huge, spanning years worth of story. It’s 1771 and Jamie Fraser along with his family are at the Gathering, a huge, well gathering of Scottish clansmen in North Carolina. Jamie Fraser’s family at this point consists of his wife Claire, his daughter Brianna, Brianna’s fiancee Roger (all three of the afore-mentioned time-travellers born originally in the 20th Century), Brianna’s son Jem (paternity as of yet uncertain), his adopted son Fergus, a former French street urchin, Fergus’ wife Marsali (also Jamie’s step-daughter) and their children. Bree and Roger are to be wed at the Gathering, as is Jamie’s aunt Jocasta. However, the priest is arrested and carted off, leading to Jocasta’s wedding being postponed, and Bree and Roger’s being performed by a Protestant minister, much to the chagrin of the very Catholic Fraser-patriarch.
Once there have been weddings and christenings and servants have been acquired, the Frasers all travel back to their homestead and Jamie and Claire set their affairs in order before going to gather up volunteers. There are Regulators protesting against the rule of the British, and Jamie has been tasked with the Governor to fight them as the Colonel of the local Militia. Initially, they avoid any direct fighting, but later on, there is a battle, with very dire effects for some of the extended Fraser family. Over the course of the massive book, Jocasta Cameron finally gets married on her lavish plantation at River Run, but the festivities is marred by a murder, and Jamie and Claire play amateur detectives when they’re not busy getting it on in the shrubberies. Seriously, they might be middle aged, but there is certainly nothing wrong with their libidos. There’s a whole bunch of other stuff too – see the rest on my blog.
This review reminds me why I’m iffy about the new book. I adore Gabaldon but feel that she needs the love of an editor who is also a harsh mistress with a rapier red pen. Too many characters, many are thinly drawn so I found myself skipping their chapters.
And Brianna! She has never been a compelling character. I haven’t read Fiery Cross in so long that I can’t remember why exactly (maybe you can elaborate?). She’s just sort of a blank-slate remotely Jamie-ish female type person. Is it that she’s suffering from plot moppet syndrome but only on an adult scale?
To be fair, from everything I’ve now read about the new book, she’s a lot more concise and a lot of the problems that have plagued her last few books seem to have been sorted out in that one. So I’m quite looking forward to getting to it, I just need to get through the several thousand pages worth of Breath and Echo to get there.
I really like Bree and Roger’s storyline in Voyager and until they suddenly show up in the past in Drums of Autumn. I just DON’T need them back in the past mucking about, and am not really sure that I need their relationship woes on top of everything else. Too much of Fiery Cross is filler.
Even so, there were so many scenes that made me smile and laugh and even bite my knuckles when it got tense. The Fiery Cross is just the book where those moments seem to disappear in the pointless filler, and it makes me sad.