Book Review: A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Diana Gabaldon's fifth book in her Outlander series, A Breath of Snow and Ashes, was, for me, a pretty great addition to the series, but there were a few items I took issue with.

First of all the good - even through these books take a lot of time to go through, the view of little day-to-day activities in the mid-1770s America was a huge part of it's charm. Just seeing how issues ranging from marriage, birth, infidelity, and the law worked at the time, through the eyes of time-traveller Claire Fraser is one of the books great strengths. As with the rest of the books in the series, there is a lot of action and intrigue going on as well, but exploring this woman's life is definitely the highlight for me.

My biggest complaint with the book was (sorry for the mild 10-year-old spoiler) all the kidnapping - at this point both Claire and her daughter Brianna have been kidnapped multiple times and I found the fact that yet again, both of them were kidnapped at different points in the novel to be more than a little repetitive.

Will I still keep reading? Oh absolutely, the good far outweighs the bad in these book and I've only got two more to go before I'm all caught up with all the other Outlander fans out there!