The Fiery Cross Synopsis
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The fifth book in Diana Gabaldon's acclaimed Outlander saga, the basis for the Starz original series.
"A grand adventure written on a canvas that probes the heart, weighs the soul and measures the human spirit across [centuries]."-CNN
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.
About This Edition
ISBN: |
9780440221661 |
Publication date: |
30th August 2005 |
Author: |
Diana Gabaldon |
Publisher: |
Dell an imprint of Random House Publishing Group |
Format: |
Paperback |
Pagination: |
1472 pages |
Series: |
Outlander |
Primary Genre |
Fantasy
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Recommendations: |
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About Diana Gabaldon
Diana Gabaldon is the internationally bestselling author of many historical novels including CROSS STITCH, DRAGONFLY IN AMBER, VOYAGER, DRUMS OF AUTUMN, THE FIERY CROSS and A BREATH OF SNOW AND ASHES. She lives with her family in Scottsdale, Arizona.
Photo © Nancy Castaldo
Diana Gabaldon on her influences...
I know writers of novels who say they don't read fiction at all while working on a book, out of fear of "being influenced" by what they read. I am struck by horror at the thought of going years without being able to read fiction (though perhaps these people write faster than I do, and take long vacations between books?)—but more struck by the sheer silliness of this.
Everything writers see, think, and experience influences their work. How could it not? Now, it's true that people do ask writers, "Where do you get your ideas?" and that writers--out of facetiousness or desperation--give answers like, "From the Sears catalog" (or "From Ideas.com," depending on the writer's vintage). But the truth is that writers get ideas from every damn thing they see, hear, smell, touch, taste, think, feel, or do—including the books they read.
Naturally, one wants to develop a unique voice, but do kids learn to talk without ever being talked to? You have an individual voice, by virtue of being an individual. And your individuality is composed of your essential God-given spark of personality and of the sum total of the things you encounter in life. Now, whether each encounter is a bruising collision or a fruitful act of love…who knows? But all of it is grist to a writer's mill; so much should be obvious, if one reads at all widely.
Personally, I learned to read at the age of three, and have read non-stop ever since. I'll be 58 next week; you can read a lot of books in fifty-five years. I'm sure that every single book I've ever read has had some influence on me as a writer, whether negative (I've read a lot of books with the mounting conviction that I would never in my life do something like that) or positive.
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