I re-read this book trying to prepare for the next new release this summer, but I did not get far in the series and the new book is now out. They are so long that it takes forever to get through them and there are 6! None the less I did manage to finish book two again. I love these books. I am looking forward to the upcoming Starz series based on these books too, hopefully STARZ does better than HBO did with true blood. When you first begin the book you think that you have missed something from the last book, maybe this is the third book on accident? No worries if you thought this, when I first read the series I actually looked it up to make sure it was the second book. In case you haven't noticed the author likes to play with time and she takes full advantage in this book. You start in the future and flash to the past rather abruptly; this method did well keeping the reader engaged and wondering what happened and maybe skipping ahead to see. You have a bit of a "wait what happen" moment at the major time jump and you have to get nearly to the end to find out what happened. We get to see Jamie and Claire's kid and the story explaining where she came from because she certainly wasn't there the last time we checked. My big initial question was why on Earth would Claire leave Jamie to go back to her normal time? I will say that on the whole I liked the story and activity of a courtly Paris entrepreneur much better than the stable boy at Leoch with nothing. The couple move to Paris and try to stop a war. We also get to see Jamie's actual home of Lallybroch if only briefly. There are a few crazy characters that I love and wish we would see again: the apothecary owner is one of my favorites and of course Buton the hospital nun's "assistant". Jamie proves himself an ass a few times but most men do so I guess that isn't news. One of these instances was very bad and almost cost Claire her life. You see a very different life style for the couple in this book, now they have money and political standing while previously they had no money or anything else but their family. The upgrade is lavish but it is more dangerous and conniving too. I had difficulty of keeping up with the politics and plots all around in this book, my mind is just not devious enough to play such games, trying to look at a situation from so many sides, it was almost as bad as the politics in castle Leoch. The book ends in the present and with a pretty hard slap for Claire.
Rating~~1
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