Another great installment in the series. I'll definitely be finishing all six (soon to be seven, I hear) books! ( )

Good adventure novel. Claire travels back in time once she learns Jamie survived the Battle of Culloden. Jamie has changed. They travel to the Caribbean, run into pirates, and try to rekindle their relationship. ( )

Lots to like about this installment but it doesn't sweep me away like the first two books in the series do. ( )

The good: Gabaldon has dispensed with the gay = evil motif of the first two books. In fact, one of the most sympathetic and well-developed characters is a gay man.

Also good: the first third of this was great, because our heroine is a very, very minor character in that third, and the characters who are featured are much more interesting.

The bad: Gabaldon has replaced the homophobia with breathtaking racism. From the heroine's "one of my best friends is black but my daughter had better never date one" to the portrayal of the "Chinaman" that had me repeatedly turning to the copyright information all, "I didn't misread that date; this was written in 1994, right? As in, the late twentieth century? WTF, Gabaldon?", there were large chunks of this I could barely read for cringing.

Also bad: when the heroine does re-enter the story, she does so with a vengeance, beginning with her appraisal of her forty-nine-year-old body as perfectly slim and muscled, with no fat whatsover, "no jiggle" in the arms and a stomach the flatness of which "borders on concavity". This woman is not written as the type of person who would ever, ever work out. But at forty-nine and after having a child she is still effortlessly hotter than you, reader, will ever be. Got that? And we go downhill from there, with men stopping in the street overcome with desire for her, and the hero ranting again about her amazingness and her "core of strength" under all the beautiful delicacy BLAH BLAH BLAH. We get it: she's the most beautiful wonderful perfect human being EVER.

Except for the racism, of course. And the fact that her parting words to her daughter when leaving forever are, "Try not to get fat." (The hero's response to this is to tell her she's the world's most perfect mother. What, you thought there was another possible response to that? Not in this book, there isn't!)

Good read. If you like "Outlander" by Diana Gabaldon, you'll probably like "Voyager" OTOH, you might feel like you've already got everything worthwhile. ( )