A Highland Scot in the Court of France

[bibliogramma]

Dragonfly in Amber, Diana Gabaldon

The second volume of Gabaldon’s saga is just as good as the first. The characters remain interesting and believable, the plot keeps moving, the romance touches the heart and the historical detail continues to give the reader a sense of “being there.” And – very important for me - unlike the gender dynamics of many of the historical romances I’ve sampled in the past, lovers Claire and Jamie continue to be full partners in their on-going quest to avert the slaughter of the Scots at Culloden.

And the use of gendered plot elements continues to be non-traditional. It’s true that Jamie occasionally voices a historically correct desire to give his 20th century wife a beating. However, the radical gender reversal of the standard rape plot, in which it is Jamie who must recover from kidnap and assault at the hands of a man obsessed with him and Claire who must contend with what’s happened to her partner and support his healing, on top of the initial reversal of sexually experienced woman matched with sexually inexperienced man, makes the whole gender dynamic read differently.

The two time periods in which this saga takes place have become disjointed in this second instalment. The 20th century timeline has advanced some 20 years; Diana is a widow with a nearly grown daughter. However, the 18th century narrative continues where it left off, with Claire and Jamie in France seeking to dissuade Bonnie Prince Charlie from mounting a full scale military engagement to regain the Scottish throne for the Jacobite lineage.

Given how the book ends, I’m not sure just how there can be four or five more chapters in Claire and Jamie’s story (and no, I’m not going to spoil the ending of this one), but I’m looking forward to finding out.