Claire Randall's story begins in 1945, when she is enjoying a second honeymoon in Scotland with her historian husband following the couple being separated for seven years by the war. The Randalls are in the Scottish Highlands when, left to her own devices, Claire innocently walks through a ring of stones and lands promptly in 1743, and the middle of the Jacobite uprising.

 

This book starts rather slowly and throughout I was wishing for more emotion. Claire comes across as very cold and rational in this book, edges that are softened by her experiences later in the series. Told in the first person and rich in detail, Diana Gabaldon's 'Cross Stitch' transports the reader back to 1743 as we follow Claire's struggles with the role of being a Sassenach; an Englishwoman among the Scottish Highlanders preparing to stage an uprising against her Crown. By about the middle of the book, I was hooked and had fallen well and truly in love with the hero of Claire's tale, Jamie Fraser.

 

*Released as Outlander in the US