50 Books: Voyager
Title/Author: Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
Page Count/Book Type: 870
Genre: Historical Fiction/Time Travel/Romance
Back of the Book: Their love affair happened long ago by whatever measurement Claire Randall took. Two decades before, she had traveled back in time and into the arms of a gallant eighteenth-century Scot named James Fraser. Then she returned to her own century to bear his child, believing him dead in the tragic battle of Culloden. Yet his memory has never lessened its hold on her...and her body still cries out for him in her dreams. (Really? I swear to God it's not as bad as this makes it sound.)
When she discovers that Jamie may have survived, Claire Must choose her destiny. And as time and space come full circle, she must find the courage to face what awaits her...deadly intrigues raging in a divided Scotland...and the daring voyage into the dark unknown that lies beyond the standing stones.
Page One: Because this is a series, and I don't want to spoil anything, I'm not going to add the first page from the rest of these. The author uses time skips and date changes so it'd be full of spoilers.
This book went by so much faster than the second. Where Dragonfly in Amber deals with the twenty-year time skip, but focuses on filling in what happened while they were young and fighting in the Battle of Culloden, Voyager deals with what happened after Claire left. As it is, I feel the same way about Claire and Jamie that I do about Bella and Edward. They're okay on their own, but together you just want to slap them around -- Claire, like I said, is basically Kate, and while Jamie is enjoyable, when he's with Claire he's basically just babysitting or being really horny.
Because this took place in the twenty years they were apart from each other, you got to read the characters and the way they interacted with the people around them. Some of it was sad, some was funny, and some of it had be shipping characters that probably would never end up together. The side characters from the first two books are grown up. Fergus, the Frenchman they adopted at the age of ten, is now thirty, etc etc. (Fergus who I absolutely adore by the way. He's so fantastic!)
I found myself really being endeared to Claire's daughter, Brianna, and her love interest Rodger, both of whom are from 1968, and I was even a little happy when Claire and Jamie were reunited. But Claire seriously attracts drama like a flame attracts little bugs, because this story went from being in Scotland, to the West Indies, and then lands you in the American Colonies. Derp.
Taking a break from the series for a bit, because no matter how much I'm looking forward to the possible reunion between Jamie and Brianna, Drums of Autumn is not only dragging, but feels like it was written by someone entirely different.