The Fiery Cross

The Fiery Cross

Diana Gabaldon

Oh no! I never thought after reading the first book in this series that I would give any of Diana Gabaldon's writing less than three starts, but this was just painful. I mean, you know it's bad when it takes me about a month to finish a book (even if it is almost 1000 pages). However, I will be continuing the series. I just can't help but love the descriptive writing, even if the plot gets boring and the books have pacing issues. Also, I received one of the later books in the series for Christmas, so I guess I have to at least reach that one.

Everything that people have complained about in the reviews on Goodreads are true. For one thing, I am sick of hearing about Bree's boobs leaking milk or being full of milk or someone (Jem or Roger) sucking on her tits. We get it, she's breastfeeding. No need to mention that every other page. There's also almost no plot to this book. I would say about 75% of this is their daily lives on the Ridge mixed with stuff that could potentially lead to something happening but just falling flat. Also, I'm not sure if the author thought that we would be sick of hearing about Jamie and Claire, but it's seeming to focus more on Roger and Bree now which kills it for me. I love Jamie and Claire, that's the reason that I fell in love with the first few books. They just make sense and are characters with such depth and insight but Bree and Roger just suck. I kind of started to like Roger more towards the end, but I just don't want to read about their relationship/romance. There's nothing there. They've been married I would say at least a year and after dating for quite some time before going through the stones, you would think they would know each other or feel comfortable around each other, right? Absolutely not. It reads like a teen romance where they tiptoe around each other's thoughts and feelings because they're both so SELFISH!

But, the end made continuing the series worth it. There are quite a few cliffhangers, including a character coming back and Claire revealing her secret to someone other than Jamie. Then there's the whole Stephen Bonnet issue and now Jacosta has a revealed secret as well. I would say if possible, skip the first 800 pages and it would be a decent story. Bring back Claire's narration through the whole thing and give me some action.