108. An Echo in the Bone

By Diana Gabaldon
Rated 3 1/2 Stars
From:  Library

This is what, the seventh book in the Outlander Series?

I had a hard time getting into this one.  I thought it was a little slow and a whole lot choppy. The story abruptly bounced back and forth between POV's, centuries and continents with out any lead in and often didn't leave me there long enough to start getting a feel for the story.  Some readers apparently can handle all this careening around but I am not one of them.

Also there were some story lines that left me thinking *why*? Why reintroduce a story line that really did not have anything to do with what was happening so far in the book.  If she is going to flesh out this storyline in a later book it seems to me that she ought to have left it for the next book and not further confused things.

Oh well . . .  this is just me and my take on thins.  My favorite parts were the William, Ian, and the Hunters.  Here is good fodder for a future book, maybe with a much older Jem and Amanda thrown to keep the time travel thing going.

But overall, after a slow start the book started picking up for me about half way through.  About 3/4 of the way through I finally figured out what Roger and Brianna were doing.  Up to then they had just sort of been there without adding anything to the story.  Obviously Diana was setting up for the next book.

My one actual criticism of the book and not just my opinion was the editing.  While this book was more tightly edited than some of hers have been someone was obviously not keeping count of how many scenes particular conversations were held.  Ian and William had the same conversation three times and Jenny and Clair the same one twice.  Publishers obviously don't spend much of their budgets on competent editorial support for their authors.