12th August 2025
Hello Sassenachs,
I have missed you. I am happy to be able to write to you so much recently. It’s always a pleasure to be in your company. I am writing this on a very hot day in my flat, with the windows open, the sun is streaming in. I have a massive smile on my face.
Before we approach today’s read, which takes us back to the Outlander universe, I want to tell you about my new Course I am taking. I am so excited to start and gain a Certificate in Library and Information Studies QLS Level 3. I am completing it online. I hope it will help me to eventually get a job in the Library. It can take up to a year to finish, so thankfully I still have The Lighthouse alongside it and my volunteering at Dorchester Library and Learning Centre.
I will tell you all about the Units as I go. Unit 1 is all about, Effective Communication. I am so happy to be studying towards something I really want. The Units all have Assignments and quizzes. I love a quiz. I want to go on Mastermind one day one of my specialist subjects would be Outlander. However, it would probably be the TV series because the books have so much in them, it’s hard to keep up!
Review (may contain spoilers)
Author: Diana Gabaldon
Novel: Voyager (Outlander Book 3)
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Imprint: Arrow Books
Ways of reading: Audiobook/Paperback
Started reading: 5th June 2025
Finished reading: 24th June 2025
Genres: Time travel/Romance/Historical
First published: 1st December 1993
Original language: English
Dedication
Thank you Barbara. Every time I return to the world of Outlander, it feels like a warm hug. This book and TV series had me glued to my seat; I couldn’t put it down.
Number of pages: 1059
Read rating: *****
Ease of reading: 5/5
Enjoyment: 5/5
Would I recommend: Aye
The Skye Boat Song (After Culloden)
Diana Gabaldon has done it again.
I ask you, when you have lost everything, how do you carry on?
When you find it again, do you go back? Can you go back?
In Voyager, we find Jamie and Claire in two very different places, one waiting to die on Culloden Moore in 1745, and the love of his life safe, searching through history to find him in 1968.
In the first half of the novel, Jamie and Claire’s run in parallel to each other. It’s almost like a diary. The reader and Claire, encounter many versions of Jamie Fraser.
Dictionary Nook
Dun Bonnet – Coloured hat = Jamie’s red hair, makes him easy to catch in theory. Not so easy in practice for the Red Coats.
Mac Dobh – ‘The Black One – A name Jamie is given in Arsdmuir Prison by his fellow inmates = refers to Jamie’s father who was as ‘Black Brian’, for his jet black hair. The Mac comes from Ellen Mackenzie, hiss mother.
How many inventions of yourself would you make to survive? Jamie goes through multiple.
1745-1746 ‘Red’ Jamie
When Jamie is a rebel, fighting for Bonny Prince Charlie, or Prince ‘Mark Me’ as I like to call him. He also got this name from the price on his head after escaping Fort William and the Red Coats, pre Claire. He is a Jacobite rebel.
1746-1753 The ‘Dunbonnet’
Jamie takes this name when in hiding at Lallybroch, whilst his family look after him after injuries he suffered at Culloden. He is again hiding from the Red Coats, who no longer hang supporters of the Jacobite cause.
1753-1756 ‘Mac Dobh’
Whilst in Ardsmuir, Jamie becomes reacquainted with Lord John Grey who is the Prison’s Governor. They previously met just before the Battle of Prestonpans. Jamie wants to make the prisoners lives better in his 1:! Meetings with Lord John. Their relationship goes from hostile to a friendship of high importance later on. It saves him many times. Lord John sends Jamie to the safety of Helwater when Ardsmuir is shut down, where he is released to complete his sentence.
1756-1764 Alexander Mackenzie ‘Mac’
Jamie becomes a groomsman to the Dunsany family. Whilst there he has an illegitimate son by the very bossy Geneva, who threatens to expose his true identity as a prisoner, if he doesn’t lie with her. He stays to protect William, after her death, eventually he leaves him in the care of Lord John and Geneva’s sister Isabelle.
1764-1766 Alexander Malcolm ‘A Malcolm’
This is how Claire find her Jamie because he becomes a priner and has his own printing shop in Edinburgh. He also does a wee bit of smuggling on the side! Claire may have got more then she bargained for.
When they meet again in 1766, so much has changed for them both, can they adjust to each other? Can Claire accept the new Jamie she finds? Can she cope with leaving their daughter in 1968? They are on a voyage of discovery in more ways then one.
‘“Do ye want me?” he whispered. “Sassenach, will ye take me – and risk the man that I am, for the sake of the man ye once knew?”’
There is a raw beauty in the way Gabaldon writes, that you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand up and your thumping, I do anyway. It’s like being hit by waves that you want to drown in to survive.
The Skye Boat Song (Caribbean Version) the third series does what series two did and changes when Jamie and Claire have to cross the sea for the sake of family. I just wanted to show the differences again.
When in prison, Lord John asks Jamie a very important question.
‘“Do you think the size of the book is justified by the complexity of the story?”’
If I were asked this, I would say, “Aye, I do, Major.”
I can’t wait to read on and find out what happens next for these two wonderfully crafted characters. However, before I do that Diana Gabaldon has created more narrative for Lord John Grey gets his own mini series of books and short stories. They fill in some of the gaps in Voyager for Jamie before his Sassenach returns. These books run alongside Outlander but are stand alone and feature a whole new set of characters that Lord John is in the middle of. we won’t be seeing Claire for a while but we may bump into Jamie, when we head back to London in 1756. I wonder what we will find in the Hellfire Club?
I hope you enjoyed today’s chat. Next time I see you, we will be doing the splits in the Cerebral Pantry! We won’t I promise. It wouldn’t be a pretty sight if I did the splits! See you soon.
Xxx
Hatty’s Reading Corner 
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