Title: Drums of Autumn (#4 Outlander series)

Author: Diana Gabaldon

Pages: 1070

Hi all,

It has been quite a journey we have taken this year. Living in the Witcher world, the German 1922 Depression and also the Outlander world has kept me quite well occupied in all the different realities that we can bring into being.

This is the fourth novel of the 8-book series, but the story has kept me quite busy and the lives of the characters have progressed so far it feels like I have joined them on their path as a silent side-character.

The book is broken down as follows:

• Prologue
• Part 1 – A brave new world (pg.1)
• Part 2 – Past Imperfect (pg.57)
• Part 3 – Pirates (pg.91)
• Part 4 – River Run (pg.169)
• Part 5 – Strawberry Fields Forever (pg.274)
• Part 6 – Je T`aime (pg.323)
• Part 7 – On the Mountain (pg.352)
• Part 8 – Beaucoup (pg.547)
• Part 9 – Passionn`ement (pg.665)
• Part 10 – Impaired Relations (pg.727)
• Part 11 – Pas Du Toit (pg.853)
• Part 12 – Je T`aime (pg.1003)

In this book we start with Jaime and Claire having been saved by a couple at their homestead near the sea of the American Colonies. Their ship has sunk due to a pursuit of a British Ship in the previous book, that ended in a storm to sink both vessels. They have met up again with their shipmates and decide to head north, where Jaime had been told where Scottish settlers were in large numbers, thanks to the outcome of the Culloden war. Thus they head north, and close to their destination are robbed by the pirate Stephen Bonnet. Eventually they end up in River Run, where Jaime hears that his distant uncle from clan Cameron had already passed away, but that his surviving spouse, Jocasta (sister to Jaime’s mother Ellen Mackenzie) was waiting their arrival nonetheless.

He lends his hands in the running of the plantation, but soon they realize that their wish is not to become the inheritors of the estate; since Claire is not in favour of having slaves, and Jaime not in favour to inflict injury on others as he had experienced before. Thanks to an unfortunate incident on the plantation the two of them, a slave woman (Pollyanne) and McNeil, their guide, leave the plantation behind to bring Pollyanne away to safety from the law. They were told that when someone was unwanted the local native American tribes sometimes gladly welcomed them into their community. The four split in two after a few days, leaving Jaime and Claire to travel back alone. During this trip they stumble upon a set of mountains, which Jaime decides will be where they will make their new homestead.

Claire and Jaime start building their new home, welcome some of Jaime’s former prison mates and their families to settle on their land and start to shape the land around them to become the beginnings of a new farm. The people of the neighboring homes soon learn of her abilities as a healer and medical practitioner and she is starting to be on her way to help people with all their ailments.

Meanwhile, back in the 20th century, Roger has come to visit Brianna, met her friends, visited a music festival together and seen the moon landing. Both have independently continued their research of Claire and Jaime’s whereabouts. After briefly finding some reports of them in Edinburgh, the trail went cold. Thus, they decided to look at reports and ship logs of people that had come to the Americas. It is here that Roger finds a newspaper report, informing of a burning that took place and claimed the lives of the two inhabitants of the same name. Fearing that she may want to decide to go through the stones herself, he doesn’t share the clipping with her. She stumbles on it herself and then makes her preparations to go. By accident, Roger discovers that she has made the journey and makes his way to Scotland to make the journey through the stones as well. With the help of his father’s former housekeeper’s granddaughter, Fiona, she, the leader of the women singing at the stones, helps him open the path through the stones.

Brianna first travels to Lallybroch and meets her aunt, uncle and cousins and then heads for the port, where she acquires lodging on a ship heading for the Colonies. Roger is a few weeks behind, and has less funds to finance a lodging and therefore hires himself as a shiphand to captain Bonnet. Both land in the Colonies and they by chance meet in Wilmington. They marry by the Scottish tradition of handfasting. Brianna has a young girl accompanying her, ill, whom she wants to bring to her mother for healing as soon as possible. Roger wants to travel another direction and remove some stones from captain Bonnet’s possession so these may be of use when they make their journey back to their own time.

Brianna suffers an indignity on their way but eventually meets her father in the next town where Jaime stands in support for Fergus, who has been called on trial for tax evasion. Afterwards they leave for the mountain. As the months pass, it becomes evident that Brianna is with child. Roger has not yet returned. Jaime has let word be sent to the harbor towns in hopes of finding a Mr. Wakefield. He has somewhat understood that his daughter had been with Wakefield but that she had also been raped. When he hears that a Mackenzie was asking for the Frasers Ridge, they meet him as he is heading towards their mountain. Jaime and Ian beat him and then bring him to the Native American tribe so he may become part of their people, or as a slave.

After eventually discovering that Wakefield and Mackenzie are the same and that it was Bonnet who had done the misdeed to his daughter, Jaime, Claire and Ian make their way to the tribe, only to discover they had given him to the Mohawks, further north. Thus, they travel further north and meet with the tribe and engage in discussion in hopes of trading him for the goods they have brought with them. During one night a brawl breaks out and one of the locals die. Roger had broken loose, trying to help a man that had been captive alongside him and in the process had hit someone, who died of his wounds. The council makes the decision that one of them shall stay with the Mohawks, to replace the fallen soldier, and Ian takes the decision to become part of the tribe so Roger may meet Brianna again.

It is quite a lot that happens and thus I shall leave it here so not to spoil how it ends.

Summary:

The story picked up very nicely where it left in the previous book (017-2022 Voyager – #3 Outlander Series) and the characters encounter so many different obstacles that they wouldn’t have encountered in their own time. The book doesn’t follow only Claire, but now followed Claire, Jaime, Brianna and Roger respectively and it was done well to not confuse the reader where the novel currently played, nor where it had been before.

For this book, I will give a rating of 4,6/5.

Happy reading!!