Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

Title: Dragonfly in Amber
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Release Date: July 1, 1992
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Pages: 752
Format: Paperback
Acquired: Bought
Interest: Series
Other Titles in the Series: Outlander
Age Group: Adult
Rating: 5 Stars

For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland's majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones...about a love that transcends the boundaries of time...and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his ....

Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire's spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart ...in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising...and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves....

I fell in love with the first book and of course I had to read the second book.

I was furious that they had to spend twenty years apart and I spent a good portion of the book cursing Gabaldon for separating them, but I knew they'd find themselves together, eventually. But I still wasn't happy.

Diana Gabaldon is amazing with history. I was drawn in from the first pages because there hasn't been any little detail not left explained, and the character's just come to life before your eyes. I didn't actually think she'd use actual historical person's in her book, but just the fact that she used them and engineered these people.

Claire still held the narration and I enjoyed how even with like eight-hundred pages Claire comes off so naturally. If Diana wasn't trying to make things so complicated on purpose, you could say that Claire and Jamie could be happy in France together, but sadly that would not make the book fun. I wasn't happy with Claire because of what she had to do in order to get Jamie pardoned from the French king, which adds to her nasty reputation I guess.

What I also liked about this book is that it finally went into the war in Scotland, with Bonnie Prince Charlie and the fight for the throne of Scotland and England. Even though the story is told from Claire's point of view, you still get this heart pounding feeling, and you know things are going to go wrong, and they'll go wrong fast. Half the things that Jamie did I couldn't believe and it was a ride that you just didn't want to finish.

The ending did have me in tears. Books don't usually make me cry; I've cried twice before on books, but that's it. I didn't want Claire to leave and the reason why she left just made the water works going. I was mad at Brianna because she didn't want to accept the truth, and that's okay, because being told that the man who's been your father for the last twenty years turns out to not be your father, but she is very selfish.

I didn't like that Claire returned to Frank, but I guess there was nothing to be done about it. I was surprised that Roger was brought back into the story, since we only saw him once in the first book, but I do like the way that Diana is very consistent. There were tons of character's from the first book that were brought back and you got to see them again. I was shocked by the truth about Frank's ancestry. I felt bad for Jamie, but we think that he might have killed Black Jack in the middle of the war, so who knows.

The book ends with a cliffhanger, so that makes the third book just that more exciting to read. If you read the first book, don't stop there, this one is wow.