Voyager (Outlander #3) by Diana Gabaldon

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.

We continue onwards with Jamie and Claire’s story with Voyager.  Twenty years have passed since Claire passed back through the stones again leaving the love of her life behind and emerging back in the future Pregnant with Jamie’s daughter, Brianna.  Can an absent love survive the test of time?  A tale of a lost love, duty and pain.  I was really looking forward to getting stuck into this one but there was a few things that left me feeling supremely disappointed, this is upsetting as I was fully invested in Claire and Jamie’s story.

I started this book over a week ago (this is an unusually large amount of time for me to spend reading a book -even in the summer holidays).  The start had me gripped but as I got further into the story it did seem to drag a fair bit and it took a long time to get to the main part of the storyline.  Undoubtedly the research that has gone into the storyline was impeccable and done with such passion I cannot fault it but on a more character arc building front it fell short in places. 

Themes of domestic violence, abduction, changes of power and chaos and order run prevalent through the book and are done to great extent and gave great clarity to the run up of events to Culloden and the subsequent years of Jamie’s life.  Jamie didn’t just suffer the injustice of having to lose Claire- who really is the other half of him, he lost the child that he would never see be born, grow up and marry herself.  There obviously was an element of grief and suffering for those reasons alone.  The living alone – Jamie was deeply lonely and craved for nothing but to be with Claire again was hard to read.  Jamie is a deeply selfless human and the fact he put so many others before himself made him a hugely relatable character. 

The story flits between Claire’s time and Jamie’s and that worked particularly well in my opinion.  Up until now we didn’t know what happened in the time between Culloden ending and Claire returning and living her life bringing up Brianna and living with Frank.  Did Claire just settle back into married life with Frank?  How much did she tell him?  Did Jamie escape his jail term? Did he move on from his one love?  The timeline moved smoothly along for me and it didn’t have me confused to where we were in the story. 

The one single thing that knocked my rating down to 3 stars was Jamie and Claire’s reunion in the printers in Edinburgh.  This was meant to be the big moment – they hadn’t seen each other in twenty years.  Neither thought they would ever see each other again and it was the most underwhelming scene I could have read regarding the hype of how they could never love another the way they do for each other.  Seriously if it was me there would be no meek little hello…jumping bones would have been the order of the moment.  That’s what I had expected for such a sexualised couple. 

“Do ye want me?” he whispered. “Sassenach, will ye take me – and risk the man that I am, for the sake of the man ye knew?” 

Lots happen in the book, but I don’t want to spoil the main plot for those that haven’t read the books yet.  However, one character makes a reappearance and I was shocked to hell and how just god damn crazy that person is and the lengths that they would stoop to in order to get their own way.  Overall, still a great addition to the Outlander story with a few surprises, a lot of loving and a whole heap of swashbuckling along the way!