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Outlander
Cover of Outlander
Outlander
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#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES 

Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages.
One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read!
Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743.
Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.
This eBook includes the full text of the novel plus the following additional content:
• An excerpt from Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber, the second novel in the Outlander series 
• An interview with Diana Gabaldon 
• An Outlander reader’s guide
Praise for Outlander
“Marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex . . . perfect escape reading.”San Francisco Chronicle
“History comes deliciously alive on the page.”—New York Daily News
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES 

Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages.
One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read!
Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743.
Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.
This eBook includes the full text of the novel plus the following additional content:
• An excerpt from Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber, the second novel in the Outlander series 
• An interview with Diana Gabaldon 
• An Outlander reader’s guide
Praise for Outlander
“Marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex . . . perfect escape reading.”San Francisco Chronicle
“History comes deliciously alive on the page.”—New York Daily News
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Excerpts-
  • From the book Jamie made a fire in a sheltered spot, and sat down next to it. The rain had eased to a faint drizzle that misted the air and spangled my eyelashes with rainbows when I looked at the flames.

    He sat staring into the fire for a long time. Finally he looked up at me, hands clasped around his knees.

    "I said before that I'd not ask ye things ye had no wish to tell me. And I'd not ask ye now; but I must know, for your safety as well as mine." He paused, hesitating.

    "Claire, if you've never been honest wi' me, be so now, for I must know the truth. Claire, are ye a witch?"

    I gaped at him. "A witch? You — you can really ask that?" I thought he must be joking. He wasn't.

    He took me by the shoulders and gripped me hard, staring into my eyes as though willing me to answer him.

    "I must ask it, Claire! And you must tell me!"

    "And if I were?" I asked through dry lips. "If you had thought I were a witch? Would you still have fought for me?"

    "I would have gone to the stake with you!" he said violently. "And to hell beyond, if I must. But may the Lord Jesus have mercy on my soul and on yours, tell me the truth!"

    The strain of it all caught up with me. I tore myself out of his grasp and ran across the clearing. Not far, only to the edge of the trees; I could not bear the exposure of the open space. I clutched a tree; put my arms around it and dug my fingers hard into the bark, pressed my face to it and shrieked with hysterical laughter.

    Jamie's face, white and shocked, loomed up on the other side of the tree. With the dim realization that what I was doing must sound unnervingly like cackling, I made a terrific effort and stopped. Panting, I stared at him for a moment.

    "Yes," I said, backing away, still heaving with gasps of unhinged laughter. "Yes, I am a witch! To you, I must be. I've never had smallpox, but I can walk through a room full of dying men and never catch it. I can nurse the sick and breathe their air and touch their bodies, and the sickness can't touch me. I can't catch cholera, either, or lockjaw, or the morbid sore throat. And you must think it's an enchantment, because you've never heard of vaccine, and there's no other way you can explain it."

    "The things I know — " I stopped backing away and stood still, breathing heavily, trying to control myself. "I know about Jonathan Randall because I was told about him. I know when he was born and when he'll die, I know about what he's done and what he'll do, I know about Sandringham because ... because Frank told me. He knew about Randall because he ... he ... oh, God!" I felt as though I might be sick, and closed my eyes to shut out the spinning stars overhead.

    "And Colum ... he thinks I'm a witch, because I know Hamish isn't his own son. I know ... he can't sire children. But he thought I knew who Hamish's father is ... I thought maybe it was you, but then I knew it couldn't be, and..." I was talking faster and faster, trying to keep the vertigo at bay with the sound of my own voice.

    "Everything I've ever told you about myself was true," I said, nodding madly as though to reassure myself. "Everything. I haven't any people, I haven't any history, because I haven't happened yet.

    "Do you know when I was born?" I asked, looking up. I knew my hair was wild and my eyes staring, and I didn't care. "On the twentieth of October, in the Year of Our Lord nineteen hundred and eighteen. Do you hear me?" I demanded, for he was blinking at me unmoving, as though...
About the Author-
  • Diana Gabaldon is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the wildly popular Outlander novels—Outlander, Dragonfly in Amber, Voy­ager, Drums of Autumn, The Fiery Cross, A Breath of Snow and Ashes (for which she won a Quill Award and the Corine International Book Prize), An Echo in the Bone, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, and Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone—as well as the related Lord John Grey books, Lord John and the Private Matter, Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Lord John and the Hand of Devils, and The Scottish Prisoner; a collection of novellas, Seven Stones to Stand or Fall; three works of nonfiction, “I Give You My Body . . .” and The Outlandish Com­panion, Volumes 1 and 2; the Outlander graphic novel The Exile; and The Official Outlander Coloring Book. She lives in Scottsdale, Arizona, with her husband.
Reviews-
  • Publisher's Weekly

    June 3, 1991
    Absorbing and heartwarming, this first novel lavishly evokes the land and lore of Scotland, quickening both with realistic characters and a feisty, likable heroine. English nurse Claire Beauchamp Randall and husband Frank take a second honeymoon in the Scottish Highlands in 1945. When Claire walks through a cleft stone in an ancient henge, she's somehow transported to 1743. She encounters Frank's evil ancestor, British captain Jonathan ``Black Jack'' Randall, and is adopted by another clan. Claire nurses young soldier James Fraser, a gallant, merry redhead, and the two begin a romance, seeing each other through many perilous, swashbuckling adventures involving Black Jack. Scenes of the Highlanders' daily life blend poignant emotions with Scottish wit and humor. Eventually Sassenach (outlander) Claire finds a chance to return to 1945, and must choose between distant memories of Frnak and her happy, uncomplicated existence with Jamie. Claire's resourcefulness and intelligent sensitivity make the love-conquers-all, happily-ever-after ending seem a just reward. Doubleday Book Club main selection, Literary Guild alternate.

  • Library Journal

    July 1, 1991
    After being separated by seven years of World War II, Claire and Frank Randall return to the Scottish Highlands for a second honeymoon. Left to her own devices while her husband immerses himself in historical pursuits, Claire inadvertently enters a circle of standing stones and is plunged back 200 years to a Scotland on the verge of the second Jacobite uprising. Her pluck and skill as a nurse win the Scots' grudging respect, but only marriage to a Scot will save her from the clutches of Frank's vicious forbear, Black Jack Randall. Though first novelist Gabaldon uses time travel primarily to allow a modern heroine, this is basically a richly textured historical novel with an unusual and compelling love story. The author, an assistant professor of research in environmental studies, was encouraged to publish by fellow users of CompuServe and has two more books contracted. If these fulfill the promise of the first, they should win a devoted audience. Literary Guild alternate; Doubleday Book Club main selection.-- Cynthia Johnson Whealler, Cary Memorial Lib., Lexington, Mass.

    Copyright 1991 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • Publisher's Weekly

    June 1, 1992
    Time-traveler Claire Randall returns to 18th-century Scotland in this compulsively readable sequel to Outlander.

  • Library Journal

    March 1, 2015

    Claire Randall is vacationing in the Scottish Highlands with her husband when she somehow travels through time to the 17th century. Rescued from British troops by a clan of Highlanders, Claire is forced to create a life in the past--a task made easier by attractive Scotsman Jamie Fraser. Brilliantly rendered details of the time and place for historical fiction fans plus swoon-worthy chemistry are two reasons this has also made an excellent TV adaptation is in its first season on STARZ. (LJ 8/96)

    Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

  • People, on Written in My Own Heart's Blood Praise for Diana Gabaldon's Outlander novels "Marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex . . . perfect escape reading."--San Francisco Chronicle, on Outlander "History comes deliciously alive on the page."--New York Daily News, on Outlander "Gabaldon is a born storyteller. . . . The pages practically turn themselves."--The Arizona Republic, on Dragonfly in Amber "Triumphant . . . Her use of historical detail and a truly adult love story confirm Gabaldon as a superior writer."--Publishers Weekly, on Voyager "Unforgettable characters . . . richly embroidered with historical detail."--The Cincinnati Post, on Drums of Autumn "A grand adventure written on a canvas that probes the heart, weighs the soul and measures the human spirit across [centuries]."--CNN, on The Fiery Cross "The large scope of the novel allows Gabaldon to do what she does best, paint in exquisite detail the lives of her characters."--Booklist, on A Breath of Snow and Ashes "Features all the passion and swashbuckling that fans of this historical fantasy series have come to expect."
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