“Drums of Autumn”, by Diana Gabaldon

Gabaldon, Diana. Drums of Autumn. New York: Delacorte, 1997. Print.

Since this is the fourth in a series, I would have thought I would have reviewed at least one of these before.  Searching shows not, though, so I apologize for the disconnection in this record.

I was given Outlander as a gift quite some time ago, and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I had not heard of it, but it seems to have quite a fanatical following.  As an example, Amazon.ca tells me it’s #30440 in books, but LibraryThing ranks it 229 in popularity.  That says to me it’s popular with people who like books and like to write about them (i.e., people like me, I guess).

I think I can best describe it as a sprawling mix of fantasy, historical fiction, and romance.  The books do seem to be impressively well researched and detailed.  The next three have followed that pattern, and if I’m not mistaken they keep getting longer each time – there is no risk of Gabaldon running out of material, I think!  In the first book, the main character Claire accidentally walks through a standing stone circle and ends up 200 years in the past.  She falls in love with Jamie Fraser, in that kind of grand passion that occasionally has me rolling my eyes, but leads to lots of great adventures.  I did get annoyed in this book at a plot device that had a communication mistake lead to a long, drawn-out disagreement that took a couple of hundred pages to resolve.  But in general it was a good read, especially for summer.