The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon

The Fiery Cross is the fifth book in the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon.

I have been reading this book for such a long time, like it’s just ridiculous. So Google informs me that there are only 992 pages in print version of the book, but it converts into 1600 or so pages on my tablet; the writing must be a different size, along with the size of my tablet ad it just reorganizes itself to make it fit right etc.

Any ways, I don’t know, I’ve been reading The Fiery Cross on and off for probably 6 months. Diana Gabaldon really suffers from word vomit; she puts so much detail into her books, which I guess is fine but sometimes I wish she’d have cut out like 40% of the babble and just gotten to the point quicker.

Don’t get me wrong though, I think that Diana Gabaldon is an amazing author and a great writer, and I love her characters and storyline. It’s just the length of the books that I take issue with, so I end up reading about 200 or 300 pages at a time and taking off to read another book or two before coming back, I don’t think I read more than 500 or so pages of this book consecutively. I think the heavy detail that writers like Diana Gabaldon and George R.R. Martin put into their books creates incredible source material for TV shows though, so that’s a good thing.

Have you seen Outlander à la TV show yet? It’s actually really good. Outlander is sort of like Game of Thrones where I won’t be offended if people decide to just watch the show instead of read the books just because the books are so long. Plus, Outlander is really good, they just finished the second season and have set us up for the third season, so that’s something to look forward too. It’s not on Netflix yet, at least not in Canada, but it’s also not the most expensive show on iTunes, and if you have cable or satellite then you can probably find it there too.

So as much as I am not wild about the sheer length / number of words I had to read to get through The Fiery Cross, I am super into the storyline. I almost gave up because I was feeling so frustrated by the pace of the story but the last 1/4 really picked up so I am glad I stuck it out. Jamie and Claire are living in North Carolina. In the previous book, Voyager, Clair came back to the past to be reunited with Jamie when she finds out that he didn’t die at Cullodon. At that point, they also ended up sailing to the colonies (AKA United States and Canada) basically cause Jamie’s nephew, Ian, was kidnapped by pirates (mercenaries?) and they wanted to rescue him and then they ended up staying.

Now in The Fiery Cross, the American Revolution is approaching. Jamie owns land and because of the laws that Britain imposes on him, he’s kind of being forced into preparing a militia to support the British against the revolutionary people. Because Claire was living in 1968 up to her return, she knows that the United States will be granted independence and has told Jamie as much. As such, Jamie is understandably not wild about being coerced into participating on the British side of the revolution but at this point he doesn’t have much of a choice. In any case, there is a bit of a skirmish.

Brianna, Jamie’s and Claire’s daughter, have also joined them in North Carolina and she brought Roger, she boyfriend from the 20th century and they’ve since married and have a son together. Meanwhile, they’re also trying to find this awful person named Stephen Bonnet for crimes he’s committed against them, as well as Jamie also nearly dying from being poisoned by a snake. There is definitely a lot of action once you get through some of the slower points.

For one reason or another, I bought all of Diana Gabaldon’s books around the same time about 2 years ago, so I will be reading A Breath of Snow and Ashes soon enough and hopefully that’ll be a bit quicker in pacing. Overall I am looking forward to continuing to follow the storyline here.

Previous novel: Voyager

Next novel: A Breath of Snow and Ashes

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Title: The Fiery Cross

Author: Diana Gabaldon

Genre: Historical fiction, fantasy, romance, time travel

Published: November 6, 2001

Published: Delacorte Press

Page count: 992