An Echo in the Bone: A Novel (Outlander)

An Echo in the Bone: A Novel (Outlander)

Selected Book Details

  • Hardcover
  • Edition: First edition, as stated
  • Author: Diana Gabaldon
  • Publisher: Delacorte Press
  • Release Date: September 2009
  • ISBN-10: 0385342454
  • ISBN-13: 9780385342452
  • List Price: $30.00

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Summaries and Customer Reviews provided by Amazon

Summary

Diana Gabaldon’s brilliant storytelling has captivated millions of readers in her bestselling and award-winning Outlander saga. Now, in An Echo in the Bone, the enormously anticipated seventh volume, Gabaldon continues the extraordinary story of the eighteenth-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his twentieth-century time-traveling wife, Claire Randall.

Jamie Fraser, former Jacobite and reluctant rebel, is already certain of three things about the American rebellion: The Americans will win, fighting on the side of victory is no guarantee of survival, and he’d rather die than have to face his illegitimate son–a young lieutenant in the British army–across the barrel of a gun.

Claire Randall knows that the Americans will win, too, but not what the ultimate price may be. That price won’t include Jamie’s life or his happiness, though–not if she has anything to say about it.

Meanwhile, in the relative safety of the twentieth century, Jamie and Claire’s daughter, Brianna, and her husband, Roger MacKenzie, have resettled in a historic Scottish home where, across a chasm of two centuries, the unfolding drama of Brianna’s parents’ story comes to life through Claire’s letters. The fragile pages reveal Claire’s love for battle-scarred Jamie Fraser and their flight from North Carolina to the high seas, where they encounter privateers and ocean battles–as Brianna and Roger search for clues not only to Claire’s fate but to their own. Because the future of the MacKenzie family in the Highlands is mysteriously, irrevocably, and intimately entwined with life and death in war-torn colonial America.

With stunning cameos of historical characters from Benedict Arnold to Benjamin Franklin, An Echo in the Bone is a soaring masterpiece of imagination, insight, character, and adventure–a novel that echoes in the mind long after the last page is turned.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: Score = 3.5 Score = 3.5 Score = 3.5 Score = 3.5 Score = 3.5

Let's call it two and a half stars.

Rating: Score = 2 Score = 2 Score = 2 Score = 2 Score = 2

Cons:

1. Too. Long.
2. Front-loaded with superfluous detail where it isn't needed, and then sparsely written at the end.
3. Numerous continuity errors, both within the book itself, and in relation to previous volumes.
4. I'm attributing it to her writing style, but this book is quite a choppy read. It's hard to stay focused on where--and when--you are.
5. There are entirely too many loose ends at the conclusion of the novel. I don't know about you, but at the end of 800+ pages, I want some resolution. Questions left unanswered? Tolerable, sure. But hand-over-mouthing and OH MY GOD-ing over SEVERAL unresolved plot arcs is not, considering that the next installment is years away.
6. I realize that the scope of the story has broadened immensely since its beginnings, but why is the Claire and Jamie gone? Or, rather, diminished? The title should start off as, "Lord John and..."

Pros:

1. Yay, we get a little more Jamie/Claire.
2. Yay, we get more Roger/Brianna.
3. Yay for more time travel mythology.
4. Young Ian--we loves him, Precious.
5. Some spoilery William Ransom stuff.

Other comments:

It's not an easy read, and by the end you'll be pulling your hair out and WHAT-ing all over yourself, but if you've come this far in the series, and you have time on your hands and and urgent need to know what happens next, I say go for it.

newest in series

Rating: Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5 Score = 5

I am really enjoying listening to the new Clara and Jamie book. WOW are there a lot of CD's. I'll be listening well into 2010.

Complete Disappointment

Rating: Score = 1 Score = 1 Score = 1 Score = 1 Score = 1

I don't even know where to begin.. this was not at all what I was expecting. I had beleived this was the last book in this series and if it is.... it's not. There are too many things left hanging not her best work. And I loved the other Outlander series books.

Slow to boring to Cliffhanger

Rating: Score = 3 Score = 3 Score = 3 Score = 3 Score = 3

Everything I thought about this book has already been stated by a previous reviewer, and probably better. Normally I purchase a new installment of this series the day it comes out and have it finished in 2-3 days tops. It took me over a month to finish this one. I love the series. I consider Jamie and Claire to be good good friends, but this book was not what it should have been. It felt forced.

And the ending was a miserable way to leave fans. In no other book did she leave readers hanging in any way like this one. That bit about Arch Bug and Young Ian was just lame. I would really have liked to have seen a real reunion between Jamie and Claire after his return from the dead. All very forced.

Wow, I hope we get the next book soon. And I really don't think I have the heart to even start my annual winter re-read of the series knowing how this book ends. So dies a personal tradition.

I miss the 'real' Outlander book this was supposed to be

Rating: Score = 3 Score = 3 Score = 3 Score = 3 Score = 3

When I set Echo aside for several weeks, only 2/3 done, to read other books, I knew then this was not the same reading experience I'd enjoyed in the past. I devoured all the previous books in the series like an obsessed fan. This book starts right off with a continuity error so obvious it's jarring. Surely Ms Gabaldon's editors know that we not only read, but re-read all her books and forgetting that she left Jamie watching Bri and Roger and William was startling.

Diana Gabaldon is a meticulous and thorough researcher - I don't think anyone has ever doubted that. But apparently at this point in her career, editors cannot say to such a successful writer -- this is a novel, not your thesis on the Revolution. So I dutifully plodded through the army strategy and political back stories of colonial America, all the time thinking. "You know I only care about Jamie and Claire and the family ---- get them out here in front of me !" I think perhaps Diana wishes to wean me off Jamie and make me fall in love with William, but I ain't buyin' it !! :)

There is other evidence of some "lazy" writing, for want of a better word, in the use of the admittedly poignant letter box. However, telling the story by having Roger and Bri simply open and read letter after letter -- a couple of these are extremely long and defying logic that they were actually written that way by her parents -- became less and less effective.

No true fan of Gabaldon will skip reading this book, but if by chance there's one out there who hasn't bought hers yet, I'd say to be prepared for a different read than what we came to expect. Questions will not be answered and you may find yourself - gasp - flipping pages to get through yet another fort-encampment-skirmish chapter. It is something that happens to may authors of long series, I'm afraid. I think they get tired of the story long before we do.