Book Review: Go Tell the Bees That I am Gone (2021). Book 9 of the Outlander Series. Diana Gabaldon.

After a very long wait for legions of dedicated fans around the world, the latest installment in the epic Outlander series of novels by Diana Gabaldon (now also a major hit TV show from the Starz channel), arrived in November of 2021.  It’s the usual 900 pages or so of small, dense type (in the hardback version) – in other words, a very long read, but worth every minute of it, and the seven long years of waiting since Book 8 (Written in My Own Heart’s Blood) was released.

As the book begins, it’s 1779, and Jamie and Claire and their family are back together again at their frontier home on Fraser’s Ridge in rural North Carolina.  They’re safe for the moment, but the American revolution is moving south, and they know from their pre-knowledge of history that navigating the next two years of war, with all the fratricidal terror to come between Loyalists and Rebels, will be fraught with danger and hard choices.

As always, Gabaldon brings the characters and scenes totally alive, with fascinating attention to period detail, contrasted social and cultural mores and conditions between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries, dramatic historical events described, and moving portrayals of many of the more timeless experiences of life, love and war.  No matter how long these books take to read, I never want them to end each time I start reading one of them.

When I started reading this series (some years ago now), I thought it might be a cheesy historical romance and bodice-ripper with some science fiction time-travel thrown in, but I soon realized it was serious literature and addictive historical fiction (with lovely occasional touches of the cosmically mysterious and fantastic) of the very best sort.  If you’ve read all the other books (and yes, they need to be read in order, at least the first time through), you’re definitely going to want to keep going, and read this one. 

Gabaldon has promised to write one final volume to end the series, and to reach the end of the American Revolution, but at one book every 5-7 years, it’s going to be a long wait for Book 10 (2028, maybe?).  In the meantime, if you haven't read this series, you'll have lots of time to catch up before the final volume arrives.  And if you have, you can always go back and re-read the previous nine books while you’re waiting!  Very highly recommended.