| Dragonfly in Amber | 
 enlarge | Author: Diana Gabaldon
Publisher: Delta
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
Buy Used: $6.00
You Save: $9.00 (60%)
New (39) Used (17) Collectible (4) from $6.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  258 reviews
Sales Rank: 2011
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 752
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.3
ISBN: 0385335970
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385335973
ASIN: 0385335970
Publication Date: August 7, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: 1993mm paperback.coverwear.spinewear.COMPLETE & UNABRIDGED.clean/tight.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Read on December 22, 2006
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
After browsing the reviews, I decide I had to rise up and defend an all-time favorite of mine. To the initiated, Diana Gabaldon suffers not from a well-trained editor.
This book is an absolutely entrancing read, and remarkable in it's historical accuracy. The very wordiness some complain of, others celebrate. The very lengthiness some bemoan, others indulge.
This book holds parts of life. Some, we have all experienced. Others are entrancing in their exotic nature. I found it fascinating and was unable to put it down, I've also re-read this book several times and it was just as engrossing in later reads.
Once again, take the plunge. You will not regret it, and will only be longing for the next book.
i love these books!! November 29, 2006
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
i had read a couple of books in the "outlander" series before i even realized there was a series so i was familiar with the characters. when i read about the author and the series i decided to start at the beginning and read them all in order and it is one of the best stories told! Diana Gabaldon does a wonderful job of bringing Jamie and Claire to life for her readers. i really hope she surprises us one day with another book continuing the lives of jamie,claire,bree and roger and the family they have on Frasers Ridge.
A rollicking time travel adventure! November 28, 2006
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
Dragonfly in Amber is the second in the series of the time travel adventures of Claire Fraser, who in the first book, Outlander, accidentally travels back in time through a set of ancient standing stones to the 18th century, there to find true love and adventure.
Dragonfly in Amber starts 20 years later. Claire traveling with her adult daughter Brianna in Scotland. As the story evolves we learn that Claire had travelled back to her own time through the stones when pregnant with Brianna. Believing that her 18th century husband Jamie had died in the battle of Culloden, Claire has put the past behind her and put her energy into raising Jamie's child, Brianna, with Frank her 20th century husband. Claire has also pursued a medical degree and works as a surgeon in a hospital in Boston. Now Frank is dead and Claire has found out that Jamie may have survived Culloden. Claire and Brianna spend time researching the fate of Jamie Fraser, as well as learning more about how time travel in the stones is accomplished.
Interspersed with Claire's 20th century story is the tale of Claire and Jamie's adventures in France picking up from where Outlander left off. This thread details the events leading up to Jamie and Claire's decision that Claire must return to the future.
This second book of the series is the only one that divides its time fairly equally between 20th and 18th century adventures of Claire Fraser. It succeeds beautifully, keeping the suspense alive as to what happens to Jamie and how Claire's 20th century family will adjust to this knowledge. Claire has grown as a character and has developed into a powerful and charismatic woman--in both time threads. The story is interesting and well written. Another page turner from Gabaldan!
 Fun, but disappointing November 19, 2006
14 out of 22 found this review helpful
Like "Outlander," this book is full of rape, buggery, floggings, brave men in battle, heavy-breathing love scenes, homophobia, and[...] love-children. Claire rescues Jamie from prison (again), Jamie saves Claire from British soldiers (again).
Claire and Jamie love each other with brutal, yet tender, passion. We know this, because we are given subtle hints as when Jamie tells Claire: "I want to hold you like a kitten in my shirt, and still I want to spread your thighs and plow ye like a rutting bull," and Claire answers, "Sometimes I want to ride you like a wild horse...And yet so often I want to hold your head against my [...] and cradle you like a child." Uh, we get it, thanks.
All of this is tolerable because the plot is fun, the characters lively, and the dialogue (outside of the love scenes) well-crafted and full of snappy humour. I give it three stars because it's a real page turner. It's just that there are too many bloody pages, half of which do nothing to move the story along.
This book suffers from lack of good editing. Not only should it be a good 300 pages shorter, but there are confusing changes of perspective in the 1960s passages. First the narrator is Roger, then Claire, then an omiscient third person, then Claire again, then Roger, then omniscient, then... Lord, I'm getting confused again just trying to explain it. These passages represent only a tenth of the book, and yet the perspective changes a dozen times.
My other big complaint is that it feels like the author failed to plan out her series. First it was to be three books, then six, and now who knows how many. But it's obvious she didn't sit down to think out a broad, over-arching story line that carry through all the books (such as JK Rowling did with the Harry Potter series, in which each book takes place over one year and brings us closer to a final confrontation). Gabaldon has aged Claire and Jamie 20 years by the second book, and she's already used up her big plot device, which has Claire and Jamie trying to save Scotland from the Rising. I'm all for stories about people older than 30 with fulfilling love loves, but, how old are they going to be by book seven? 80? [...]and kidnapping and heaving bosoms don't work very well when you're writing about octagenarians. As I understand it, the next books have them all over the map, dealing with everything from pirates to voodoo to the American Revolution. How much can happen to two people?
I guess I won't find out. This is the last I'll read from this series. It is too bad, because with an editor willing to reign in Gabaldon's self-indulgent excesses, tighten up the plot, and make sure the series was well planned out, this could have been an outstanding body of work. As it is, I fear the next books will not be worth slogging through their collective 4,000 pages.
Perfect continuation! November 6, 2006
After reading "Outlander" I was unsure whether I believed a sequel could be written that would be as good. I became a believer. I thought "Dragonfly in Amber" was the perfect continuation. I love how all sorts of little ends are tied up, while some new ones unravel! This 900+ page book took me exactly 9 hrs. and 17 mins. to read, including bathroom breaks! It was another fantastic page-turner to me!
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