10 out of 10 rating. Excellent writing skills: romance, adventure, time travel based on true historical events. This book is so great that the publisher printed a 20-year anniversary edition. The heroine, Claire, travels back in time - and falls into a love that transcends all time - with Scottish hero, Jamie Fraser. It's the first book in a series of 7 books. And every book is excellent. A must read.

I've made it through the entire series including the Lord John series. I have to dismiss certain aspects of the story in order to keep going. First of course is to overlook the time travel bit. Next I skip over all the gratuitous sex and violence, especially the torture scenes. So what's left? It has an authentic feel to the living of every day life in the 18th century. Its fun to see how much attitudes and technology, especially medical advancements have changed in 200 years. I don't even like the main character, Claire, or her daughter, Brianna, but I have still found it worthwhile to read this series.

I was encouraged to read this book by a friend (overseas). I'm trying to come up with a way to give her my impression it that won't undo our friendship. She's completely enamoured of this work; I've been bored by the story and any chance of enjoyment of historic context has been undone by her heavy-handed writing (as though she went to the thesaurus to find every $25 version of a decent $5 word. The historic content is shallow, the characters are shallow, and I'm half-way through. There's no one to like, not even her (maybe Jamie because he's clearly an underdog, apparently handsome, and who doesn't like them?). I agree with the other reviewers who've complained of the sex scenes. I'm no prude but using them and extra violence as drivers of the story doesn't make for good writing.

I stopped halfway through because of the frequency of attempted rapes upon the female character. It's as if the writer just added one in whenever she felt stuck. The scene where her husband spanks/beats her while inebriated clenched it for me. I'm not going to spend the rest of the book rooting for the marriage to work out after that. Not going to happen. I don't have much good to say about the book (especially the excruciatingly boring first 100 pages or so) and I've been told that the others in this series are worse. You have been warned.

A romance adventure about a 20th century gal trying to make it in 18th century Scotland. The story starts off well but gets bogged down with too much graphic sexytime-- some of it mingled with disturbing violence. I was disappointed that the grand romance completely blotted out the more interesting time travel aspect of the story.

I don't find romance novels very interesting, a personal thing. If you like romance novels you'll love this one.

Not a quick read, but definitely entertaining. The second book isn't nearly as good.

This 7 book (Gabaldon is writing the 8th) series is terrific. Well written and researched historical fiction.

It took me a bit to get into the story, but once I got used to the writing I was hooked! To date, I've read the whole series and am eagerly awaiting the release of the next book.

I love this book! it is impossible to not fall in love with the characters and the story. While it can be a little overwhelming at over 800 pages, I was unable to put it down and when i finally finished it, the only thing that stopped me from going back to the beginning and starting again, was knowing there were 6 more books to read in the series.