The book begins in 1968 and this simple thing has broken my heart. Because it meant that Claire actually did left Jamie behind at one time or another. For a moment I felt sorry I even begun reading this book as I would rather have known them together forever. :)

The book is very interesting, even though the first half was just a slightly bit disappointing. It was okay but the first book was way more than that, was truly amazing. A large part of this first half is dedicated to describing Jamie and Claire at Versailles. It was a bit harder for one to relate with the two characters given the circles they were in (they were familiarly acquainted with King Louis of France, Bonnie Prince Charlie, various dukes and counts and so on). Jamie was a business man and I thought the role fitted him way less than the one of the outlaw hiding in a forest. Same goes for Claire, she was far less interesting as a lady of society, attracting all the gentlemen, than she was when only a normal person in Scotland. Luckily their time in France came abruptly to an end (not before Claire slept with King Louis, why? why???) and they returned to Lallybroch where they spent some quiet time together before poor Jamie became an outlaw again (this time because of some forgery of Prince Charlie). And they sort of returned to the life I liked so much in the first book.

When reading the book I had no idea this was supposed to be a trilogy but I felt sure that the author had in mind this second book while writing the first one. At least because we now become certain that the ghost at the very beginning it was really Jamie as in this book he receives as a present the running stag brooch that had captured Frank’s attention back then. Also, when the two lovers have to part, he promises her he’ll find her:

“I will find you,” he whispered in my ear. “I promise. If I must endure two hundred years of purgatory, two hundred years without you—then that is my punishment, which I have earned for my crimes. For I have lied, and killed, and stolen; betrayed and broken trust. But there is the one thing that shall lie in the balance. When I shall stand before God, I shall have one thing to say, to weigh against the rest.”
His voice dropped, nearly to a whisper, and his arms tightened around me.
“Lord, ye gave me a rare woman, and God! I loved her well.”

However much I liked this book, the part at the end seemed to me a bit forced (the part where they all witness Geilis/Gillian as she passes through the rocks; I mean, what were the odds?). I did like though the fact that Geilis went to the past with a mission, a mission to help Prince Charles win, a mission that sort of explains her later behaviour. I actually wonder if, by any chance, she is the one that convinced Dougal MacKenzie to become a Jacobite.

The title of the novel is open to interpretations. There is an actual dragonfly in amber that Claire has received as a present at her wedding to Jamie (with a poem written on it, part of which Claire discovers, hundreds of years later, to be also written on her wedding ring). In my opinion the title is referring to the fact that, no matter how hard she tries, Claire is as incapable to stop the Culloden Battle as a dragonfly in amber (she does once refer to herself as such).
LATER EDIT: Actually the title seems to be explained a lot better in the third book, the dragonfly in amber is Jamie himself:

He had been fixed in my memory for so long, glowing but static, like an insect frozen in amber. And then had come Roger’s brief historical sightings, like peeks through a keyhole; separate pictures like punctuations, alterations; adjustments of memory, each showing the dragonfly’s wings raised or lowered at a different angle, like the single frames of a motion picture. Now time had begun to run again for us, and the dragonfly was in flight before me, flickering from place to place, so I saw little more yet than the glitter of its wings.

I found some interesting things in this book, for example did you know that “mac” means “son of” in Gaelic? Which sort of explains why the vast majority of the clans have names beginning with Mac. Also, did you know what a rat satire was?

“A rat satire is an old Scottish custom; if you had rats or mice in your house or your barn, you could make them go away by composing a poem—or you could sing it—telling the rats how poor the eating was where they were, and how good it was elsewhere. You told them where to go, and how to get there, and presumably, if the satire was good enough—they’d go.”

The book really sparked my interest into the Culloden area so here are some related links:

• Clan map of Scotland: here
• Diana Gabaldon tour (yes there is such thing): here
• Some pictures from nowadays Culloden: here
• The headstone of the Clan Fraser: here or here
• Cairn detail: here
• Other headstones:
  • Clan Stewart
  • Mixed Clans
  • “here the head of MacGillivray fell”

This book is a sequel to:
Outlander

This book is followed by:
Voyager
Drums of Autumn
The Fiery Cross
A Breath of Snow and Ashes

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