Outlander is a historical romance science fiction book series written by American author Diana Gabaldon. There are ten volumes planned for the book series, and eight are already published. As of 2014, Gabaldon sold more than 25 million copies of her books.
Due to the book series’ popularity, it spawned a couple of derived works, such as a musical, a graphic novel, a novel series featuring Lord John Grey, and a television series that premiered on Starz in 2014.
Who Is Diana Gabaldon?
Diana Gablon is a historical romance science fiction writer who grew up in Flagstaff, Arizona. She made her writing debut in 1988 with Outlander, initially titled Cross Stitch. Her U.S. publishers changed the title to Outlander because they feel it may come across as an embroidery book to their audience.
It wasn’t until 1991 when her first book got published, and since then, the series went on to sell over 25 million copies worldwide and has been translated into 39 languages.
After her second novel, Dragonfly in Amber, was finished, Gablon resigned from her job at Arizona State University to focus on her writing career.
Outlander Book Series Rundown
Outlander follows the story of World War II combat nurse Claire Beauchamp Randall after she was transported back in time to Scotland in 1743 while she was vacationing with her husband in the Scottish Highlands.
She meets Jamie Fraser, with whom she shares her numerous adventures in Scotland, the Caribbean and America, and France.
Outlander was adapted into a television series in 2014. The show stars Caitriona Balfe as Claire Randall, and Sam Heughan as Jamie Fraser. The show is currently in its fifth season and is renewed for another sixth season.
Outlander Series Complete Book List and Summary
Here are all the Outlander books in chronological order for anyone who wants to get started on the book series:
1) Outlander – 1991
Book Summary: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NOW A STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES
Unrivaled storytelling. Unforgettable characters. Rich historical detail. These are the hallmarks of Diana Gabaldon’s work. Her New York Times bestselling Outlander novels have earned the praise of critics and captured the hearts of millions of fans. Here is the story that started it all, introducing two remarkable characters, Claire Beauchamp Randall and Jamie Fraser, in a spellbinding novel of passion and history that combines exhilarating adventure with a love story for the ages.One of the top ten best-loved novels in America, as seen on PBS’s The Great American Read!Scottish Highlands, 1945. Claire Randall, a former British combat nurse, is just back from the war and reunited with her husband on a second honeymoon when she walks through a standing stone in one of the ancient circles that dot the British Isles. Suddenly she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland torn by war and raiding clans in the year of Our Lord . . . 1743.Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of a world that threatens her life, and may shatter her heart. Marooned amid danger, passion, and violence, Claire learns her only chance of safety lies in Jamie Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior. What begins in compulsion becomes urgent need, and Claire finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.This eBook includes the full text of the novel plus the following additional content:
• An excerpt from Diana Gabaldon’s Dragonfly in Amber, the second novel in the Outlander series
• An interview with Diana Gabaldon
• An Outlander reader’s guidePraise for Outlander“Marvelous and fantastic adventures, romance, sex . . . perfect escape reading.”—San Francisco Chronicle“History comes deliciously alive on the page.”—New York Daily News
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2) Dragonfly in Amber – 1992
Book Summary: NOW THE STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES OUTLANDER
With her classic novel Outlander, Diana Gabaldon introduced two unforgettable characters—Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser—delighting readers with a story of adventure and love that spanned two centuries. Now Gabaldon returns to that extraordinary time and place in this vivid, powerful sequel to Outlander.DRAGONFLY IN AMBER
For twenty years, Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to the mysteries of Scotland’s mist-shrouded Highlands.Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as shocking as the events that gave it birth: the secret of an ancient circle of standing stones, the secret of a love that transcends centuries, and the truth of a man named Jamie Fraser—a Highland warrior whose gallantry once drew the young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his.Claire’s spellbinding journey continues through the intrigue-ridden French court and the menace of Jacobite plots, to the Highlands of Scotland, through war and death in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves.Praise for Dragonfly in Amber“Diana Gabaldon is a born storyteller. . . . The pages practically turn themselves.”—The Arizona Republic“A triumph! A powerful tale layered in history and myth. I loved every page.”—Nora Roberts“Compulsively readable.”—Publishers Weekly
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3) Voyager – 1993
Book Summary: NOW THE STARZ ORIGINAL SERIES OUTLANDERIn this rich, vibrant tale, Diana Gabaldon continues the story of Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser that began with the now-classic novel Outlander and continued inDragonfly in Amber. Sweeping us from the battlefields of eighteenth-century Scotland to the exotic West Indies, Diana Gabaldon weaves magic once again in an exhilarating and utterly unforgettable novel.VOYAGERTheir passionate encounter happened long ago by whatever measurement Claire Randall took. Two decades before, she had traveled back in time and into the arms of a gallant eighteenth-century Scot named Jamie Fraser. Then she returned to her own century to bear his child, believing him dead in the tragic battle of Culloden. Yet his memory has never lessened its hold on her . . . and her body still cries out for him in her dreams.Then Claire discovers that Jamie survived. Torn between returning to him and staying with their daughter in her own era, Claire must choose her destiny. And as time and space come full circle, she must find the courage to face the passion and the pain awaiting her . . . the deadly intrigues raging in a divided Scotland . . . and the daring voyage into the dark unknown that can reunite—or forever doom—her timeless love.Praise for Voyager“Voyager is, frankly, an amazing read. An unusual mix of romance, suspense and history. . . . If you can put this huge tome down before dawn, you’re made of sterner stuff than I am.”—Arizona Tribune“Rousing . . . audacious . . . exciting . . . Gabaldon masterfully weaves . . . flashbacks . . . crossing time periods with abandon but never losing track of the story.”—Locus“Unconventional . . . memorable storytelling.”—The Seattle Times
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4) Drums of Autumn – 1996
Book Summary: The magnificent saga continues….It began in Scotland, at an ancient stone circle. There, a doorway, open to a select few, leads into the past—or the grave. Claire Randall survived the extraordinary passage, not once but twice. Her first trip swept her into the arms of Jamie Fraser, an eighteenth-century Scot whose love for her became legend—a tale of tragic passion that ended with her return to the present to bear his child. Her second journey, two decades later, brought them together again in frontier America. But Claire had left someone behind in the twentieth century. Their daughter, Brianna….Now Brianna has made a disturbing discovery that sends her to the stone circle and a terrifying leap into the unknown. In search of her mother and the father she has never met, she is risking her own future to try to change history…and to save their lives. But as Brianna plunges into an uncharted wilderness, a heartbreaking encounter may strand her forever in the past…or root her in the place she should be, where her heart and soul belong….
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5) The Fiery Cross – 2001
Book Summary: The dazzling fifth volume of Diana Gabaldon’s extraordinary Outlander saga, featuring 18th-century Scotsman James Fraser and his 20th-century time-traveling wife, Claire Randall.The year is 1771, and war is coming. Jamie Fraser’s wife tells him so. Little as he wishes to, he must believe it, for hers is a gift of dreadful prophecy—a time-traveler’s certain knowledge.Born in the year of Our Lord 1918, Claire Randall served England as a nurse on the battlefields of World War II, and in the aftermath of peace found fresh conflicts when she walked through a cleftstone on the Scottish Highlands and found herself an outlander, an English lady in a place where no lady should be, in a time—1743—when the only English in Scotland were the officers and men of King George’s army.Now wife, mother, and surgeon, Claire is still an outlander, out of place, and out of time, but now, by choice, linked by love to her only anchor—Jamie Fraser. Her unique view of the future has brought him both danger and deliverance in the past; her knowledge of the oncoming revolution is a flickering torch that may light his way through the perilous years ahead—or ignite a conflagration that will leave their lives in ashes….Grand, sweeping, utterly unforgettable, The Fiery Cross is riveting entertainment, a vibrant tapestry of history and human drama.
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6) A Breath of Snow and Ashes – 2005
Book Summary: This sixth novel in Diana Gabaldon’s bestselling Outlander saga is a masterpiece of historical fiction from one of the most popular authors of our time. A Breath of Snow and Ashes continues the extraordinary story of 18th-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his 20th-century wife, Claire.The year is 1772, and on the eve of the American Revolution, the long fuse of rebellion has already been lit. Men lie dead in the streets of Boston, and in the backwoods of North Carolina, isolated cabins burn in the forest.With chaos brewing, the governor calls upon Jamie Fraser to unite the backcountry and safeguard the colony for King and Crown. But from his wife Jamie knows that three years hence the shot heard round the world will be fired, and the result will be independence—with those loyal to the King either dead or in exile. And there is also the matter of a tiny clipping from The Wilmington Gazette, dated 1776, which reports Jamie’s death, along with his kin. For once, he hopes, his time-traveling family may be wrong about the future.
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7) An Echo in the Bone – 2009
Book Summary: Diana Gabaldon’s brilliant storytelling has captivated millions of readers in her bestselling and award-winning Outlander saga. In An Echo in the Bone, the seventh volume, Gabaldon continues the extraordinary story of the eighteenth-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his twentieth-century time-traveling wife, Claire Randall.Jamie Fraser, former Jacobite and reluctant rebel, is already certain of three things about the American rebellion: The Americans will win, fighting on the side of victory is no guarantee of survival, and he’d rather die than have to face his illegitimate son—a young lieutenant in the British army—across the barrel of a gun.Claire Randall knows that the Americans will win, too, but not what the ultimate price may be. That price won’t include Jamie’s life or his happiness, though—not if she has anything to say about it.Meanwhile, in the relative safety of the twentieth century, Jamie and Claire’s daughter, Brianna, and her husband, Roger MacKenzie, have resettled in a historic Scottish home where, across a chasm of two centuries, the unfolding drama of Brianna’s parents’ story comes to life through Claire’s letters. The fragile pages reveal Claire’s love for battle-scarred Jamie Fraser and their flight from North Carolina to the high seas, where they encounter privateers and ocean battles—as Brianna and Roger search for clues not only to Claire’s fate but to their own. Because the future of the MacKenzie family in the Highlands is mysteriously, irrevocably, and intimately entwined with life and death in war-torn colonial America.With stunning cameos of historical characters from Benedict Arnold to Benjamin Franklin, An Echo in the Bone is a soaring masterpiece of imagination, insight, character, and adventure—a novel that echoes in the mind long after the last page is turned.
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8) Written in My Own Heart’s Blood – 2014
Book Summary: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BOOKLISTIn her now classic novel Outlander, Diana Gabaldon told the story of Claire Randall, an English ex-combat nurse who walks through a stone circle in the Scottish Highlands in 1946, and disappears . . . into 1743. The story unfolded from there in seven bestselling novels, and CNN has called it “a grand adventure written on a canvas that probes the heart, weighs the soul and measures the human spirit across [centuries].” Now the story continues in Written in My Own Heart’s Blood.1778: France declares war on Great Britain, the British army leaves Philadelphia, and George Washington’s troops leave Valley Forge in pursuit. At this moment, Jamie Fraser returns from a presumed watery grave to discover that his best friend has married his wife, his illegitimate son has discovered (to his horror) who his father really is, and his beloved nephew, Ian, wants to marry a Quaker. Meanwhile, Jamie’s wife, Claire, and his sister, Jenny, are busy picking up the pieces.The Frasers can only be thankful that their daughter Brianna and her family are safe in twentieth-century Scotland. Or not. In fact, Brianna is searching for her own son, who was kidnapped by a man determined to learn her family’s secrets. Her husband, Roger, has ventured into the past in search of the missing boy . . . never suspecting that the object of his quest has not left the present. Now, with Roger out of the way, the kidnapper can focus on his true target: Brianna herself.Written in My Own Heart’s Blood is the brilliant next chapter in a masterpiece of the imagination unlike any other.Praise for Written in My Own Heart’s Blood
“[Written in My Own Heart’s Blood] features all the passion and swashbuckling that fans of this historical fantasy series have come to expect.”—People“Another breakneck, rip-roaring, oh-so-addictive page-turner from Gabaldon . . . Take a deep breath, jump aboard, and enjoy the ride.”—Library Journal“With her Outlander series, Gabaldon . . . successfully [juggles] a sizable and captivating cast of characters; developing thrilling plotlines that borrow equally from adventure, history, and romance; and meticulously integrating a wealth of fascinating period details into the story without slowing down the pace. The result is a sprawling and enthralling saga that is guaranteed to keep readers up long past their bedtimes.”—Booklist (starred review)
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Conclusion
If you are looking for another author, book series or even genre to read next then check out our collection of must reads here.
