I loved this way more than I expected to. I honestly had no idea what to expect when I started this. I've never seen the show (I'm a 'read the book first' kind of person), so I was going in blind. The only thing I knew was that this was a romance/time travel story about Claire and Jamie. And that it takes place in 18th century Scotland. It took me a while to get the hang of the story, but once Claire stepped through the standing stones, the pace of the story picked up a bit.

I have to say, there were quite a few unnecessary scenes. The book itself could've been 200-300 pages shorter, and the important storylines would be unchanged. Nevertheless, I have nothing against books of 800+ pages, so this one didn't scare me. I was kind of worried that the story would bore me, but that didn't happen. The romance between Claire and Jamie was a bit forced at first, but it turned out to be quite captivating in the end. I'm curious to see how the story'll continue, so I'll definitely be reading the second book in the series.

Now, I've read that some people can't get over the fact that Jamie had to punish Claire for walking off and trying to escape. The truth is; it didn't really bother me that much. Not that I enjoyed reading it, but the two characters that had to live through it, didn't either. You have to keep in mind that the story takes place in 1743 for pete's sake. These are not entirely civilized times and these are clearly their ways. Claire did put Jamie and several of his men at risk by trying to escape and walking straight into the arms of the redcoats. Honestly, I thought it was pretty foolish of her to try and sneak off by crossing a river. But oh well. Jamie has to save her and gets really angry with her, because not only did she disobey his orders, but she put a lot of lives at risk at well. To me the scene was a necessity, and not something Claire underwent willingly. I mean, she struggled and bit Jamie during the act itself. Afterwards, he tried to explain what he did and their way of 'punishment' by telling her stories of his childhood and the times his dad had to hit him. No matter how much of a feminist Claire is, no matter how strong and independent; she's in the eighteenth century now and things are definitely a bit different than what she's used to. Sure, if this happened in 1946 with her other husband, Frank, it would've been a different story. But to me, these things should be read in context. Context of the story and context of setting and time.