A very late-comer to the series, I really loved the dialect, setting, and characters, but also had some quibbles about some plot points that took me out of the story. SPOILERS AHEAD, reader beware.

The Good:
The writing swept me away into the world of 18th century Scotland and England. Sometimes written accents are intelligible or I can't hear them in my head, but not so here.
I really felt the connection between Jamie and Claire and it made me root for them throughout the book and their trials.
History! Yeah!
Hot sexy times
Just enough time travel to whet my appetite, but not too much to make me think about it too hard.


The Questionable
LOTS of time spent discussing the merits of beatings, whuppings, torture, etc.
Very episodic, lots of rising and falling tension that will serve the TV show well, but made the overall story-line a bit muddled.
Massive spoiler here -

Spoiler

Jamie's rape and torture by Captain Randall was very dark, which while completely awful served the storyline, but then to have Captain Randall randomly killed by a pack of cows was a big let down. I wanted REVENGE. Also, Claire's method of opium taking plus reenacting said rape to get Jamie back from the brink of death was utterly shocking, weird, and not what I would have thought would be a good idea. I'm assuming there will be further ramifications of the rape in future novels, but from where we ended here Jamie seemed to have made a pretty miraculous psychological recovery.

The quibbles aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this and will continue reading. The first episode of the show as also super awesome, so here here!