Can't wait to chat about this one! I'm not sure how you gals want to work this? Chat and post spoilers with chapter or page numbers? Let me know


Lori

Barb

Just saw your post on the someday thread....yes, Ian is Jamie's nephew...his sister Jennie's son. Fergus was kind of adopted by Jamie along the way...grew up in a brothel and , if I remember right, he was being beaten by his dad so Jamie took him on as a hired hand and sort of adopted him.


Lori

Morning Lori and thanks for putting this up. I just started this morning and have read 20 pages. Think I can get right back into it. Can you just tell me how Ian is related to Jamie? And Fergus. I recognize the name but can't make the connection.

Barb

quote:

Fergus was kind of adopted by Jamie along the way...grew up in a brothel and , if I remember right, he was being beaten by his dad so Jamie took him on as a hired hand and sort of adopted him.

Yea, that sounds familar. Was that when they were in France? How did he loose his hand?

Barb

Okay you got me with that one...lol I don't remember. Maybe Katherine or Ramona?

Lori

Well the funniest thing when I first started reading this morning was that I remembered Rollo the dog. Well I just remembered the name. Ah it feels good to be reading this adventure again. I will probably have a bunch of questions as I go.

Barb

quote:

Originally posted by Damifino:
Can you just tell me how Ian is related to Jamie? And Fergus. I recognize the name but can't make the connection.

Lori's right, Ian is Jamie's nephew. Ian's mother is Jamie's sister, Jenny, the spunky spitfire who doesn't take crap from anyone. Jenny and her husband, Ian, who lost a leg, run the family estate, Lallybroch, back in Scotland. Ian was the nephew that was kidnapped by the pirates and they finally rescued in the West Indies; because of that Jamie was able to talk Jenny into letting him go with him to America. Then when in America Ian exchanged himself for Roger who was captive in the Mohawk village and became an official Mohawk, Jenny refused to answer Jamie's letters. Later Ian returned to Jamie and Claire after his Mohawk wife (and I believe also a child) died.

Fergus was the little guy Jamie rescued from a brothel in France, he had lived there from his birth and didn't know who his father was. He was a pickpocket and Jamie had him stealing confidential political documents. Jamie took him on as his foster son. Fergus lost his hand in an encounter with English soldiers at Leap o' the Cask, and later he marries Jamie's stepdaughter, Marsali.

Any of this sounding familiar?

~Katherine

Lori,
Thought I'd let you know I'm on page 93.
~Katherine

Hey Katherine


Just sent you a pm about the book.

So Fergus didn't know who his father is...do you remember someone being beaten by his father? I can't remember who I am thinking of and it's niggling and my wee brain.

Lori

Howdy!

I have no clue what you guys are talking about here in regard to the book. But I went out and got the book today! So I'll be joining in! (I'm just dying to be part of a book discussion), I miss that!

PLEASE, chat (with any spoiler alerts) and tell me your thoughts about the book! I hope I can enjoy this book with out not having read all the books from the series, I'm jumping right in. I did read the first one 10 years ago.

quote:

Originally posted by lorifog:
Can't wait to chat about this one! I'm not sure how you gals want to work this? Chat and post spoilers with chapter or page numbers? Let me know


Lori

Hey Merty

I think you can enjoy it without reading the other ones but you just won't get quite the same feel for the character development. If you have a question, fire away, someone around here should be able to help.

I'm really enjoying this one. The Fiery Cross was a little slower for me but this one just flows. It gives more info about Claire being a "healer" which I am enjoying.


Lori

quote:

Originally posted by lorifog:
So Fergus didn't know who his father is...do you remember someone being beaten by his father? I can't remember who I am thinking of and it's niggling and my wee brain.

Yes... ummm it's coming back to me. Wasn't that back near Lallybroch? Jamie discovers the boy is covered in bruises and then his father ends up dying when the cottage is burned to the ground and everyone suspected it was the grandmother (I think) but everyone kept quiet about it because they felt that justice had been done. The grandmother and boy then went to work for Ian and Jenny at Lallybroch. Could that be what you're thinking of?

~Katherine

That's it!!!! Thanks, that was bugging me

Lori

SPOILER ALERT--Thru Chapter 16

I'm copying and pasting what Lori and I have been discussing so far on PM.
~Katherine
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lorifog
Posted July 30, 2008 01:18 PM
Okay, I just can't wait till everyone else catches up. lol

What do you think of it so far? I really enjoy the fact that they are telling us more about Claire's medicine, although I could have lived with Robert Higgins hemorrhoids...yuck. she does add some humor to the stories with this, I think. Poor Jamie too...how difficult for him to tell Claire that he offered himself to Lord John.
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Katherine
Posted July 30, 2008 02:48 PM
I love it, of course!

And I don't even mind the medical scenes like the hemorroids, though I'd not want to be on either end of that exchange in real life. Somehow I'd not find it so humorous then. LOL.

I do find some of the sex and the accompanying talk a bit of a shocker sometimes. I consider myself to have a good healthy view of sex and I'm not inhibited but much of it just seems like such a private thing that if Gabaldon didn't keep it mostly between loving married couples it would be too over the top for me. Now that I think about it, I guess the only graphic thing in books or movies that doesn't get to me is medical. Maybe I missed my calling.

One of the things I so admire about these books is how well Gabaldon portrays her characters. There is never anything flat or cardboard about them, it's as though they are real people and could just walk off the page. They seem real with their own pain & fear, their faults and their loves. When Jamie tells Claire about offering himself to Lord John, we're walking close to a very deep wound for him and it allows us to see just how much trust there is between the two of them. Ya gotta love that.

A couple of things I noticed so far is that Roger's fear about his damaged voice is lessened when he drinks which makes me think he's going to have something concerning this he's got to deal with.

Another is when Duncan Innes mentions that a healer had repaired his lip as a child. Holy cow, likely another person who walked through the stones!

Hearing Duncan describe his aunt who was "stakit to droon" raised the hair on my head. I know we have religious people through history who have perpetrated horrendous things on those of different faiths, but yikes. I think this is foreshadowing some really bad things ahead with this group of protestants Roger is talking back to settle on their land...

Oh, and that nasty Stephen Bonnet is back (of course) to lurk and plot and make us shiver with his cold cruelty. What would we do without a villian to hate? I thought for sure in an earlier book we were going to find out Black Jack Randall really hadn't died on the battleground at Culloden. Even though Jamie saw his eye plucked out by a big black bird I thought he'd show up with a patch on his eye. LOL. He was a fantastic villian. As awful as Bonnet has been in the past, I still don't think he measured up to Randall.

Through the last section the chapters seem to be really short, just a few pages long. Is that new? I don't remember Gabaldon doing that before but I may just not have noticed.

~Katherine
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lorifog
Posted July 30, 2008 02:52 PM
Yeah Katherine

she does seem to be a bit more descriptive in the sex scenes than she was in the earlier books. It doesn't bother me but I do think that a lot of authors can get the point across without spelling it out for us

What is a "stakit to droon"? Lori
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Katherine
Posted July 30, 2008 03:00 PM

quote:

What is a "stakit to droon"?

I think it's staked to drowned. She was staked there on the beach with an old woman and when the tide came in she would take a breath and then the water would go up over her, then subside 'til the next wave came in until she had drowned.

~Katherine
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lorifog
Posted July 30, 2008 03:05 PM
Ah, thanks for clarifying. That scene really got to me, too. When I was 10, we were on vacation and I swam to the bottom of the 8 foot side and promptly got my toe stuck in the grate at the bottom. Thank God, my brother had just taken swimming with the Boy Scouts and had mentioned that if you're ever in trouble you should blow bubbles to the top so people notice you. Boy did I ever and he was right there and jump in the help me. I probably totaled about 20 seconds of my life but was a very vivid 30 seconds. I can't imagine that!

Merty wants us to post using spoilers...maybe we should bring this chat over there?

Lori
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Katherine
Posted July 30, 2008 03:33 PM
Your drowning experience gives me chills. Thank heavens your brother was nearby!

I'll copy and paste this over on the thread and then post it with spoiler in the title. See ya over there, Lori.

~Katherine