Well, it's longer than The Fiery Cross, but hopefully I will get through it faster. If I remember right, it didn't have parts that seemed to drag on or be unnecessary. But as it's been a few years, I could be wrong on that too. TFC took me three days to read the first time and five this time. ABSOAA took 2 days. I have a feeling it will take more this time. But, allons-y!
Side note: after this re-read, I think my next bit of reading will be thoroughly modern or even futuristic. A nice comfortable post-apocalyptic story maybe to counter being sunk so deeply into history?
So much happens in this book and it definitely moves faster than TFC. I've gotten through 54 chapters in a bit over 24 hrs. I've gotten to where they're at River Run and Flora MacDonald has spoken. Jocasta had some problems due to her glaucoma (very graphic treatment on Claire's part with the needle, which is odd for me that it somewhat squicked me out since most surgical and medical procedures do not bother me in the least but come on, a needle to the eye...)
But the varied attacks on homes in surrounding areas, Ian's head injury, Maj. MacDonald's visits, the arrival of Bobby Higgins with news from LJG, Roger going with Tom Christie and Arch Bug (both of whom all I can say about is grrr, though at least in the end Christie did the right thing), Jamie speaking with the Cherokee and having to fend off the women, another letter and gifts from LJG, the meeting with Sequoyah, burial of an unknown white man by the Frasers, Arch Bug's story of how he lost fingers on his right hand, Tom Christie's surgery, Jamie and Roger's visit to the Cherokee and finding the burned out cabin and Roger's mercy killing of the child, the attack on Marsali and abduction of Claire, meeting Wendigo Donner, Claire being gang raped, how Jamie, Roger, Ian, Fergus, Arch, Tom, and Kenny Lindsay tracked the men who kidnapped and raped Claire and killed all of them but Lionel Brown, the interrogation of Lionel Brown and his admission that Hodgepile was responsible for the burning of many of the cabins, Mrs. Bug's murder of Brown and the subsequent delivery of his body to Brownsville, Henri-Christian's birth and Fergus's worries about him being a dwarf. the "death", temporary resurrection and actual death of Hiram Crombie's mother-in-law, Jamie selling a gemstone through LJG, Claire's making and testing of ether (on Lizzie and Bobby Higgins, unlike the show where it's tested on Lizzie and the Beardsley twins), Jamie's visits to the Snowbird Cherokee and meeting Scotchee, Manfred McGillivray's confession of sleeping with a woman and contracting "the French disease" and the breaking of his betrothal to Lizzie and later leaving, the effects that had on Jamie, Tom Christie's punishment of Malva, Jamie speaking to Malva, Jamie and Bree finding the charm Mrs. Bug explains in "The Venom of the North Wind" (also differs from the show where a group of women found it not Bree and Jamie), the rumors about Roger and Amy McCallum and Roger helping her out, Roger deciding to become a minister, LJG sending money to Jamie for the gemstone and Jamie returning a letter thanking him and explaining so John doesn't worry they're about to starve, meeting Flora MacDonald at River Run, the surgery on Jocasta's eye, the ingot of gold having been moved from its hiding place in the house and Jocasta hearing a voice she recognized as being the third man with Dougal and Hector when the retrieved the gold in Scotland in addition to her having heard it before...
So yeah lots of things have happened.
Bree meeting Wendigo Donner was an odd part. Skipped in the show completely if I remember right (yeah I just watched season 6 and no I don't remember it fully because keeping the show vs the books separated is not always easy and I am too lazy to go verify it) but Donner is hanging about River Run wanting to speak to Claire but he has been run off a few times (by Ulysses I presume). Claire learns the plan of the Montauk Five was to arrive in the 1760s and in the confusion of the aftermath of the French and Indian War, settle amongst the border tribes along the Proclamation Line and influence them to side with the British in the coming Revolution. Claire realizes there were more than just Donner and the four others and asks if there were more. Donner confirms that saying,
“I got the idea there were, yeah. But Raymond said only five at a time could pass through. So we trained in, like, cells of five. We kept it secret; nobody in the big group knew who could travel and who couldn’t, and Raymond was the only one who knew all of ’em.”
She then asked what Raymond looked like and Donner describes him as, "Short dude, I think. White hair. Wore it long, like we all did.” She then asks where they came through the stones and Donner says it was on Ocracoke and how it is the northernmost portal in the Bermuda Triangle Group. (Odd as most maps of the Bermuda Triangle do not approach the American coast). Bree asks how many portals there are and Donner explains,
Raymond had told them that there were many such places in the world, but that they tended to occur in groups. There was such a group in the Caribbean, another in the Northeast, near the Canadian border. Another in the Southwestern desert—Arizona, he thought, and down through Mexico. Northern Britain and the coast of France, as far as the tip of the Iberian peninsula. Probably more, but that’s all he’d mentioned.
Not all of the portals were marked with stone circles, though those in places where people had lived for a long time tended to be.
“Raymond said those were safer,” he said, shrugging. “I dunno why.”
The spot on Ocracoke hadn’t been bounded by a full circle of stones, though it was marked. Four stones, he said. One of them had marks on it Raymond said were African—maybe made by slaves.
Donner further says the five men and Raymond went to Ocracoke and the stones there on Samhain and how he and Jojo ended up together but Jojo was dead. Then Ulysses finds Donner and Donner gets arrested for stealing some man's purse and taken to the Cross Creek gaol.
Unlike in the show where Jamie sees the jar with the testicle of Stephen Bonnet, it is Claire who learns it was removed by Dr. Fentiman but that the "gentleman" had taken it with him. Claire also learns the likely location where Manfred McGillivray was seen and buys a "penis syringe" to treat the clap.
Wow. So yeah I won't even begin recapping things. There's a lot. Bree getting kidnapped thanks to Forbes. Forbes paying for that with his ear. Bree getting taken to Ocracoke by Bonnet, finding Phadre. The loss of King Louis's gold. Finding out about Auntie Jo and Ulysses. But those Ocracoke stones and Wendigo Donner come into play. As does Bree meeting Lord Ellesmere. Oh and the death of Bonnet happened so he is not going to trouble the family any longer. Of course Bonnet's death at Bree's hands was a merciful thing. But the Battle of Moore's Creek, the whole arrest of Claire and Jamie for Malva's death, Tom Christie's sacrifice, finding out who really killed Malva...so much. Suffice it to say, Jamie and Claire do not die during the fire at the Big House. But they did lose Bree, Roger Mac and the kids. Not to fire but to having to return to the future because of Mandy's illness. But oddly to 1980 (which we find out in ECHO).
All in all, a good book. Much less of a slog than TFC for all that it is longer. Took me less time to read than TFC did that's for sure.
Quotes A Breath of Snow and Ashes from © 2005 by Diana Gabaldon
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