Where to start? This is one of those books that half the world has read (or seen on TV) and everyone has heard of and has an opinion on. The basic premise is the traditional one for any portal story – a modern-era character who steps into the past and has to survive/adjust/get home. Nothing original there. The twist here is that the story starts in 1945, with Claire Randall on a second honeymoon with her husband in Scotland, the idea being to get reacquainted after wartime separation. As with any portal story, this part is way, way too long (actually, the whole book would be improved by being cut in half, but no matter). I didn’t develop any connection with husband Frank, so I didn’t much care when Claire left him behind, and her desire to get back to him never quite rang true.
The Scotland of 1743, where Claire ends up, is far more interesting, and much of the historic detail seemed quite authentic to me. The characters – not so much. All these braw Scots warriors, honed in clan wars and battles with the English, treated Claire with astonishing gentleness, as if she were an honoured guest instead of a woman found (apparently) screwing an English soldier. In the real world, I suspect she’d have been raped and/or killed pretty smartly. But no, they take her back to their castle where, even though they believe she’s a spy, they put her in charge of doctoring the residents. Now that’s just asking for a mass poisoning. And she sets about being all perky modern woman, instead of keeping her stupid head down.
And then there’s the hot young Scotsman, Jamie. Again, he’s terribly gentlemanly and, even though all the maidens have the hots for him, he’s still a virgin. Hahahaha! Yeah, right. But lucky Claire is forced to marry him, because reasons. And then the sex breaks out and the book goes to hell in a handcart. Now, I have no problem with sex in books, even quite large quantities of it, as here – frankly, they go at it like rabbits, and never mind about poor old left-behind-in-the-future Frank. That’s OK. A bit less rutting and a bit more plot wouldn’t have gone amiss, but it’s not really a problem. Well, OK, a lot less rutting. It did get repetitive after a while.
No, what I really disliked was the amount of violence and gory stuff in the book. Every chapter, it seemed, had another skirmish, and another graphically-described wound for Claire to stitch up with her twentieth century skills (how lucky that she was a nurse!). And by the time I got to the halfway point, and the sex and violence were getting a bit mixed up together, things got too murky for my taste. I know from reviews and a bit of skimming that all of that gets worse, so I gave up on it at that point. Nicely written, and the history seems accurate, as far as I can tell, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. One star for a DNF.
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