Outlander is a whole series of books, and a TV series as well. I’ve only read the first two books and not seen the TV series.
Claire, a nurse in post-WW2 Britain, accidentally ends up time travelling to Scotland in 1743. She meets Jamie, a charming Scot, gets married to him (not quite of her own free will) and then they have adventures and lots of romance.
Let’s just pause here for a moment. What is the probability that, thrown 200 years into the past, you would agree to marry someone you’ve only known for a week or two, even though you’re already married in your own time? So what if he is handsome, and you’re told you have to!
Jamie seems to be designed to be perfect in all ways, except for a few imperfections that are clearly also designed to charm. Most handsome, of course, but with scars to add character. He is noble yet down-to-earth; educated yet folksy; strong but tender; fiery but patient. Kind, intelligent, skilled at everything except singing.
Claire on the other hand is annoying. She’s pretty and competent and feisty, swears a lot, and spends a lot of time bandaging wounds. But she has a bad tendency to jump to conclusions and make assumptions, instigating quarrels and inadvertently putting both herself and others in danger. And she doesn’t grow out of it, either. I don’t need or expect a perfect heroine, but I don’t understand why the main character in a romance novel would be written to be so annoying.
I’m also surprised by how unsurprised and unbothered Claire is. She barely seems to notice the differences between the 1740s and the 1940s, and just slips into her new life with no effort to adjust. No comments on the lack of indoor toilets, or central heating, or the monotonous diet. And after several years in Scotland, with many people speaking Gaelic around her, she doesn’t bother to learn the language.
The numerous other characters are varied and colourful. Many of them are interesting and drawn with surprising depth, and I enjoyed getting to know them.
Jamie and Claire’s relationship is central, of course. Much of that relationship circles around sex. It’s like these two cannot communicate with or relate to each other without having sex. Tender sex, rough sex, angry sex, making up after fighting sex, healing sex, consoling sex, taking farewell sex, and sex in any other kind of mood and situation you can imagine.
It is a romance book, fine, so the amount of sex is perhaps not surprising. But its essential role in their relationship seems unrealistic to me. And so does the fact that neither Claire nor Jamie seem to have any preferences. Any kind of sex will do for them, even when it borders on rape! They’re like addicts.
The other thing they have in their lives is plenty of adventure. They both go from one danger to another. The plot, in fact, seems to be designed mostly to create opportunities for them to (a) have sex, and (b) rescue each other. Believability comes far down the priority list.
The author just throws things in, more and more, until the story becomes a melodramatic soap opera. Poisonings, oath ceremonies (yeah, of course Claire times her arrival for that once-in-thirty-years event), raids, rape, sadistic torture, wolf attacks, a witch trial, and why not throw in some magic as well while we’re at it.
Despite all of this, and in part because of all this, I did enjoy the first book. It may be unbelievable, but it is also engrossing and lively. Never a dull moment! Even as I was fuming at some of the shortcomings of book 1, I immediately went on to read book 2.
Book two has the same level of melodrama and the plot consists of the same types of dangers. It’s the same rape and raiding and a touch of magic and Claire binding an endless stream of wounds, but in a different guise, a different setting and different order. And the same “sex solves everything” approach to relationships. So it has quite a “been there, done that” feel. There is less adventure and more intrigue, and half the book takes place in Paris instead of Scotland. I liked adventures in Scotland better than intrigues in Paris.
After book two (Dragonfly in Amber), I didn’t feel any need to read book three, so I stopped here.