The Fiery Cross
The Fiery Cross is the fifth book in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander
or Cross Stitch Series
The fifth instalment continues immediately after Drums of Autumn left off and soon the reader can forget completely the long months of waiting for this book as you are swept once more into the world of Claire and Jamie Fraser.
It is the day of Brianna and Roger’s wedding and all seems set to go
ahead…but things are far from easy as problems arrive in the form of Father
Kenneth’s arrest through the religious struggles that even in the newly
colonised America are very much evident.
But it takes much more than a small detail like this to deter the happy couple and Claire and Jamie are as determined as they are to see the marriage take place and are prepared to take whatever risk is necessary to see the ceremony through.
After the celebrations the family returns to Fraser’s Ridge to continue with their lives. This would seem an ideal place to finish the story of the Fraser’s but as readers of this series know there are many loose ends to be tied up, not least of which being how the Fraser’s will fare in the coming Revolution.
Just short of 1000 pages this book is a clever and intricately woven story of the lives of the Frasers and their extended family. To describe each of the stories in detail as they occur in the book would be almost impossible due to the way they are blended together. Instead I have chosen to simply recount the stories briefly below in no particular order.
Firstly there is the murder mystery at Jocasta Cameron’s plantation. Jamie Fraser’s aunt Jocasta has lived with a secret for many years and now it has come to the time where finally it can be revealed to the reader just what she has been hiding. This mystery story is set against the background of Jocasta’s own wedding at River Run, a wedding destined to be as eventful as all the others that have taken place throughout the Outlander series.
The past does not only haunt Jocasta but in its own way it also haunts Roger MacKenzie. But for Roger the past is much more dangerous. His path crosses once more with that of William Buccleigh MacKenzie and his wife Morag. As we know, they are his ancestors, but of course he cannot tell them that. Roger finds himself with a dangerous enemy in William. It is for Jamie and Claire to rescue Roger from the actions of his vengeful ancestor in a race against time. But the consequences for Roger and the rest Frasers will last a lot longer than just that tragic day.
Another strong plot line in The Fiery Cross is the decision Claire and Jamie must face as to whether they could have another child. Jamie, as we know, has missed the life of Brianna and is only now getting to know her. But Claire feels that she has deprived him of his daughter and worries that perhaps he would like another child now that they are finally together again.
Children also feature strongly in Brianna and Roger’s lives as the mystery of Jemmy’s paternity continues to cast a shadow over their lives, especially as Stephen Bonnet is still out there and continuing his usual practices to make his money.
We see the return of Ian Murray from his adventures with the local Kahnyen’kehaka tribe. But what has happened to Ian in the years since his leaving will remain a mystery, at least for now.
Claire meanwhile is continuing her medical research and working at her surgery. Life continues as normal and the distant lives of those who remain in Scotland continue to touch on the Frasers. As do the lives of many people they have met along the way.
We learn more about the stone circle and how it is that some people can travel through the stones and others cannot.
But all the time in the background is the shadow of the coming Revolution. As it says in many advertisements for this book, Claire has the terrible gift of prophecy that is a time traveller’s certain knowledge. Just how that knowledge will be used when the time comes remains to be seen.
Now I have read a lot of reviews of this book and they are certainly a mixed bunch. For what it’s worth, this is my view on the latest instalment of the Claire and Jamie saga.
One of the main complaints about the book is that it is slow paced and merely filling time until the Revolution. I think that comments such as this do not do this book justice at all.
No, this book does not move at a fast action-filled pace like the first book of the series did. Nor would I expect it to. Years have passed since the events in Outlander. Claire and Jamie have changed over the years as people do. For either of them to keep up the pace as they did when in their twenties would be to send them to an early grave from exhaustion.
The Fiery Cross is not a fast paced adventure; it is the story of their lives. Lives are not all filled with adventures. They are filled with decisions that have to be made, whether large or small, family, friends and loyalties. The Fiery Cross has these in abundance. Whether it is the decision about whether to interfere in the events that are about to take place or whether to have another baby, we journey with Claire and Jamie as they make their choices and await the consequences of their decisions.
At the end of Outlander there was clearly room for another book, even more so at the end of Dragonfly in Amber. At the end of Voyager there was a more definite conclusion to the story but knowing what events were coming into their lives it would have been a crime to leave things there. Again at the end of Drums of Autumn there was more to be said. Each and every one of these books leads nicely into the next one and The Fiery Cross is no different in that respect. To call it padding until the next book is to say that you do not care for the lives of Claire and Jamie and their family and the talent of Diana Gabaldon is such that we do care about their lives.
This is a story about their lives and although vastly different to Outlander it is, in its own way, just as wonderful. I still hold that Outlander is my favourite book of the series but The Fiery Cross comes very close to it, as does the rest of the series.
For the impatient amongst us you can read extracts from the unpublished books in the Claire and Jamie saga at the Diana Gabaldon Web Site.
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