Title: Voyager (book #3 in Outlander series)

Author: Diana Gabaldon

Pages: 1059

Hi all,

it was quite a long read and a few other things happening on the side, but finally managed to turn the last page of this book as well.

Considering where the series started to where it ended in book two, I thought we had covered quite some significant ground. Yet, finishing the third installment to the Outlander series has left me with an impression that the story can develop much further than first anticipated.

The book is broken down into nine parts, each one taking the reader to a different place the characters are travelling to. From the end of novel two (012-2022 Dragonfly in Amber) Claire returns to her own time, and this is where the story begins…

Part One – Battle and the Loves of Men (pg. 1)

• Back at Culloden in the 1746, Jaime has secretly sent his men from his home-clan home so they wouldn’t die at the battle. The battle has taken a turn for the bad that the survivors are either executed by the redcoats as they are retreating, or they are collected and sent to prison. Jaime is one of the lucky ones that by fortune manages to escape from being sent to prison.
• Back in 1968, Claire and her daughter Brianna have decided to take a journey to Scotland since Claire received some time off and is on a mission to research on the outcome of the battle. Since she returned, she has become a qualified medical practitioner and moved with Frank to America. After roughly two decades of marriage, he passed away and she decided to take a trip here.

Part Two – Lallybroch (pg. 49)

• For seven years Jaime hides in a cave near his family estate, only coming to visit every second/third month to have a proper shave and occasionally bring them a slaughtered animal. During this time the redcoats are continuing to make their patrols in the lands of the highlanders so they might catch any remaining fugitives. After some near catches, Jaime finally decides to hand himself over. Not freely, but to be ‘betrayed’ by his cousin Jared so he may cash in on the reward. Jaime is captured and sent to prison in Ardsmuir.

Part Three – When I am Thy captive (pg. 93)

• Roger Wakefield, Brianna and Claire manage to find more records to confirm that Jaime had survived the battle and after few years resurfaced in the prison records.
• Jaime has spent some time in prison with other members of the former Jacobite fighters. The prison gets another prison ward in Mr. Grey. It is an old acquaintance of Jaime.
• After some time has passed there is a rumor in town of a man that speaks of gold and other valuables. Mr. Grey believes that he could restore his reputation if he could find the lost Jacobite treasure and present it to the crown. With Jaime agreeing to be the Gaelic interpreter they interview the man, but he only speaks in tales that it is not clear whether there is truth to his words, or whether he is a madman.
• After coming to nothing they head back to the prison and after a few days, Jaime escapes the prison for three days before he is eventually found once again. Mr. Grey interviews him on his unpermitted expedition, but acquires no further information.
• After a few years have passed, the order is passed that the prisoners of war will all be sent to work on the colonies (i.e. USA lands) for the crown. Mr. Grey has developed a liking for Jaime and made special arrangements for him to be sent as a stableman to a lord in England instead.

Part Four – The Lake District (pg. 193)

• Jaime has been sent to the Helwater estate to be the stableman for the lord, a friend of Mr. Grey. Here he handles the horses of the estate as well as other responsibilities for the household. He has received a new name so that the lady of the house might not know who he was in the Jacobite wars. However, he still writes letters to his sister. This is where one of the daughters, Geneva, intercepts one of those letters and finds out his true identity. She is to be wed with a man three times her age. She threatens to expose him and his real family unless he spends a night with her, so she may enjoy her first night with a man she truly wants.
• She becomes married, moves in with her new husband and after a few months gives birth to a child. Sadly, she passes away. The ‘father’, a well-off duke, claims she has been unfaithful to him since he is sterile. There is a feud between the two households that eventually sees the duke passing away. The family of the daughter take the responsibility of raising the child and managing the estate until the son becomes of age. As the son, William, grows, it becomes more and more clear that he bears relation to the stableman. This is where he requests and obtains his pardon from the crown to leave homewards.
• Back in 1968 Roger and Claire have tracked down more records that confirm that an Alexander Malcolm was a printer in Edinburgh, which they believe to be Jaime under a new identity. Claire has taken her decision to leave behind the world she is living in so she may hope to find Jaime and spend the rest of her days with the man she truly wanted to be with. One of the four season festivities is upon them and so she makes her way through the stones one more time. The final time.

Part Five – You can’t go Home again (pg. 251)

• Before she leaves, Claire tells her daughter of the life she lived since she returned from the Jacobite war back to Iverness in the 1947. She and her husband had collectively decided to make a new start in Boston where they had no one from their past to make any assumptions. Claire had studied and worked to become a practicing physician and Frank had become a professor of history of the local university. He had decided not to leave Claire when she had returned since he didn’t consider it proper etiquette. However, he had decided to raise their daughter as his own. When Brianna had finally become 18 he had decided to leave Claire and move back to England with their child and another woman. They fought, he left and died in an accident.
• Taking some time off from work she decided to take a trip back to Scotland to get away from it all.

Part Six – Edinburgh (pg. 301)

• Going on a hunch, Claire travels to Edinburgh to find this printer called Alexander Malcom. She locates the shop, and they reunite.
• However, his life has changed completely as well. He is a printer, officially, but he is also an alcoholic beverage smuggler. Since the times after the Jacobite war have not made life easy for the highlanders, Jaime has turned to doing some smuggling work so he may earn some additional coin and send it back to help the estate.
• An informer lets him know that one of their upcoming shipments will be intercepted, so they decide to collect the cargo in the secondary location instead. However, there is an additional ambush. Not only that, his printshop in Edinburgh was searched by an intruder and then finally burned to the ground.
• Things were getting heated for them, which is why they decided to disappear for a while until things could cool down again. They decide to visit the family estate.

Part Seven – Home Again (pg. 479)

• Back home Claire meets the enlarged family of Jenny and Ian Murray. Claire also learns that Jaime had remarried Laoghair a few years back. This causes a feud and Claire leaves the next morning. However, Young Ian (one of Jenny’s youngest) catches up with her and convinces her to return since Laoghair has accidentally wounded Jaime. She does, but only to heal him. They would clear things up later.
• When he has recovered well enough, a lawyer arrives with Laoghairs brother so they may settle the mess. The marriage is annulled. However, Jaime is required to make payments to her since her reputation has been damaged. He agrees and the guests leave. Jaime doesn’t have any finances to cover the costs, and the estate is also on the brink, so it doesn’t have any finances to spare.
• Jaime then suggests they should retrieve some of the treasure. The Jacobite treasure that he had found during his time in Ardsmuir prison. They all agree. They further agree that after collecting the treasure and sending it back home, they would head for France so that the authorities wouldn’t search for Jaime.
• When they finally arrive at the designated area Young Ian descends the cliffs, swims to the rock island, but then nothing is heard from him again. It is a foggy day, so Jaime only eventually notices that others had made their way to the island as well. It then turns out that Young Ian was taken hostage by a group of sailors.

Part Eight – On the Water (pg. 605)

• They have made their way to France to meet up with cousin Jared. He is not familiar with the captor ship’s purpose nor route, but strongly believes that it is to the Carribean Islands they would be heading to.
• Jaime and Claire agree with Jared to accompany one of his ships to Jamaica, drop alcohol cargo and return with other cargo for him. In return, they may use the ship for any voyages between the other islands until they need to return. Thus, they make their journey across the Atlantic.
• First stop is Jamaica, but not without difficulty since a Man-of-War from the British Royal Navy calls upon Claire to attend to their crew for their plague/Typhoid outbreak. She sails with them until she departs the ship in secret and eventually meets their crew on an island after having been marooned.
• Not hoping to intercept the Royal Navy just yet, they make their way to Jamaica and lay anchor on another port. There, they make inquiries with the locals on the ship they seek and have no success, except of one lady that lives further inland and might have more information.
• They meet with lady, only to find out that it is Geilie, the lady they had met and with whom Claire was denounced to be a witch. She had managed to escape her fate with the help of Dougal and eventually ended up here in Jamaica.
• She declines to know anything of any new white slaves having been brought to her estate, but they are not inclined to take her word for it.

Part Nine – Worlds Unknown (pg. 825)

• When they return at night Geilie has left her estate with the last of the white boy slaves she had held on her estate and was heading for an island where magical events were rumored to occur. Once they arrive, they realise that Geilie has full intention of offering him as her blood sacrifice before entering the portal. They manage to overcome her and save with some minor injuries. However, after leaving the caves they find that the Man-of_War had been in pursuit of another ship and now is intent on overtaking them as well.
• They sail for days to avoid capture and it is only when they end up in a bad storm that the Man-of-War is sunk and their own ship is also in no good shape. After a few days on water, they reach land. Claire wake up in a bed of a young lady who welcomes them to their home in the colonies. Their flight from the Carribean had taken days into account and the bad weather had offered them speed that they ended up in the New World.

You’ll find that you will be anxious throughout the book since you share the feeling of being on the run from something the whole time. That is the beauty of the tale. Always searching for something, whilst other things happen around you along the way.

There are eight novels in this series. This was only the third, so I’m intrigued to find out where we will be heading in the next book, but I won’t set any expectations, because my prior ones have all fallen short to what has been delivered.

Summary:

Great book, intriguing journey and she captures it so well what the struggles of the day were and how Claire still manages to adapt to this new world. The book receives a strong 4.65/5.

Have fun reading it!