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January 13 - August 1, 2019
Ughhh, why a brother?! It would be better for him to have just murdered his daughter because she (and her mother!!) were witch-like. But to have taken in his niece out of his sense of Christian duty? It fits his character, sure. Or to hold on to Malva because his wife was unfaithful with his brother? Stretching it, but okay. But to then MURDER his niece/illegitimate daughter and GO AGAINST that Christian duty? The very Christian duty that so overwhelms his personality? No!
“I thought—well, it doesna matter what I thought, but I went. And asked him, would he mind my wife, and the wee lad.” He drew a deep breath, let it slowly out. “And he did.” “I see,” I said very quietly. He turned his head sharply at the tone of my voice, gray eyes piercing. “It was not his fault! Mona was a witch—an enchantress.”
Illegitimate daughter, then.
“She was hangit,” he said, sounding almost matter-of-fact about it. “For the murder of my brother.”
Oh, good lord.
“But she was with child …” I said. His face paled further, but his voice was firm. “Aye, she was. I do not think it wrong to prevent yet another witch from entering the world.”
Ouch!
Whereupon, seized by inspiration—and bearing my careful teachings in mind—she had taken mucus and blood from the body and put it into a little bottle with a bit of broth from the kettle on the hearth, nurturing it inside her stays with the warmth of her own body. And had slipped a few drops of this deadly infusion into my food, and that of her father, in the hope that if we fell sick, our deaths would be seen as no more than a part of the sickness that plagued the Ridge.
Daaaaaaaamn. I kind of hate that Malva tried to kill Claire, but I understand why she tried to kill Tom. Why didn't she try to kill her brother, though? Her brother is a mini Tom.
wanted,” he said at last. “She lusted. Lusted for wealth, for position, for what she saw as freedom, not seeing it as license—never seeing!” He spoke with sudden violence, and I thought it was not Malva alone who had never seen things as he did. But she had wanted Jamie, whether for himself or only for his property. And when her love charm failed, and the epidemic of sickness came, had taken a more direct way toward what she wanted.
This feels so fucking cliche to me. It could have been anything else!! Sure her repressive upbringing and repressed sexuality (ala 18th century) might have exacerbated the issue. But still!! I liked Malva so much... this seems like a disservice to her character.
He saw me flinch, and looked down. Then, awkwardly, he reached out and took my hand. I felt the scars of the surgery I had done, the flexible strength of his gripping fingers. “I have waited all my life, in a search …” He waved his free hand vaguely, then closed his fingers, as though grasping the thought, and continued more surely, “No. In hope. In hope of a thing I could not name, but that I knew must exist.” His eyes searched my face, intent, as though he memorized my features. I raised a hand, uncomfortable under this scrutiny, intending, I suppose, to tidy my mad hair—but he caught my
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:'(
“I have yearned always,” he said softly, “for love given and returned; have spent my life in the attempt to give my love to those who were not worthy of it. Allow me this: to give my life for the sake of one who is.” I felt as though someone had knocked the wind from me. I hadn’t any breath, but struggled to form words. “Mr. Chr—Tom,” I said. “You mustn’t. Your life has—has value. You can’t throw it away like this!” He nodded, patient. “I know that. If it did not, this would not matter.”
What great writing... :'( Sad it comes at the end of such ridiculous melodrama. Tom Christie is a character I'm sad to say goodbye to. What a great send-off.
L’Onion,
I still can't get over that this is actually in the book. Too... twee? Cutesy? Annoyingly, noddingly on the nose?
had a brief, shocking glimpse of Murdina Bug, face contorted with effort as she pressed the pillow over Lionel Brown’s face.
Lol. Murdina the murderer.
eloquent of deep fatigue.
This is a really beautiful phrase.
àrsaidh
Just looking at this, it's a really cool example of how Latin infiltrated the Gaelic language. Creolization of language!
There was, he thought, occasionally something to be said for the eighteenth-century model of sexual roles.
WOW, THIS IS SUCH BULLSHIT. Roger, you've become so sexist and gross since coming to the 18th century. This is not a good look on you. I knew you had some of these tendencies back when you and Brianna had the falling-out in "Drums of Autumn," but good lord. This is worse than when you KISSED THAT RANDOM WOMAN in "Fiery Cross"!!
The stars were coming out. He stood looking up, trying to empty his mind, his heart, open himself to the love of God.
It would be nice if you could open your heart to women's lib and equality, ROGER.
“He’s taken Brianna,” Jamie said without preamble. “Ye’ll come.”
Oh, Jesus Christ. If this is a Bonnet plot line thrown in at the very end... I am going to be so mad.
The wind-borne stink, though, was real enough. She’d never smelled it before herself, but had heard her mother’s vivid description of it, and recognized it instantly—the smell of a slaver, anchored offshore.
Is this lazy writing, or a clever way to get out of the trouble of describing the stink? I can’t really “picture” the smell in my mind, but I can infer some smells from prior knowledge. Lazy writing? It’s not evocative enough, but it plays up character relationships.
“Sell him, what else?”
I know Bonnet is lawless, but isn’t selling someone else’s slave/property to a slaver a VERY bad idea?
“Phaedre?”
Lol, wasn’t expecting this.
You could go both ways; they knew that for a fact. The obvious implication—which neither Roger nor her mother had mentioned, so perhaps they hadn’t seen it—was that one could go into the future from a starting point, rather than only into the past and back. So perhaps if someone traveled to the past and died there, as Geillis Duncan and Otter-Tooth had both demonstrably done … perhaps that must be balanced by someone traveling to the future and dying there?
Foreshadowing a resolution to the shady Scottish peeper of book one/episode one? And Jamie’s dream/“sight” of Claire’s time revealed in this book?
“As for Ulysses …” His face was grim. “I think that matter will adjust itself, Sassenach.”
If this means what I think, I will be livid.
January 21 was the coldest day of the year.
This is an absolutely awful sentence (from a writing-critique perspective). Like, I get that it's because they're afraid of the newspaper fire, but... no.
boiling burned acorns.
I thought you had to first blanche/excessively soak acorns to make them safe for consumption?
“Murtagh,”
:’(
BORN, to Captain Roger MacKenzie of Fraser’s Ridge and his lady, a girl, on the twenty-first of April.
"His lady." Pah! Fergus!
Amanda Claire Hope MacKenzie.
1) Where did "Amanda" come from? Is it Roger's mother's name? 2) Claire is a sweet inclusion. 3) Hope is a super corny inclusion, imo.
It was my best stethoscope, a model from the nineteenth century called a Pinard—a bell with a flattened disc at one end, to which I pressed my ear. I had one carved of wood; this one was made of pewter; Brianna had sand-cast it for me.
This lead me to thinking that the stethoscope from the 19th century was something Claire had brought with her from the 20th century, but I don't remember that inclusion in "Voyager." So it makes sense that Brianna made the stethoscope for Claire... but also NOT, because a stethoscope seems a delicate instrument to design and create. Also, how would Claire have knowledge of the 19th century design? Enough knowledge to educate Brianna, someone who certainly doesn't have that prior knowledge, on its construction? It's a cute idea, but where were the editors for this book? WHERE?!
“I think,” I said carefully, “that we need to find two more stones. Just in case.”
But where would Brianna and Roger obtain another FOUR stones when they come back? I would say "if" they want to come back, but we all know they will because DRAMA.
And so, in late June, we came down from the mountain, into turmoil.
Love this sentence. What a great lead-in/cliffhanger.
THE NINTH EARL OF ELLESMERE
EX. CITE. ED. for Willie!!!
“It’s John! Lord John!”
XOXOXO
“It’s Da,”
No, it’s Willie!!!
“Go with God, Stephen,” she said clearly, in Gaelic, and pulled the trigger. Then she dropped the gun into the water and turned round to face her husband. “Take us home,” she said.
Great scene.
Bobby’s here!”
Bobby!!!!! Yay!!!!! ❤️
“I love you,” he said, so softly that I barely heard him, close as we were.
JAMIEEEEE. I want to cry. You can’t do this, Jamie. Your heart is so big, but you deserve love!!!
“If one day, a bhailach,” Jamie said conversationally, “ye should meet a verra large mouse named Michael—ye’ll tell him your grandsire sends his regards.” He opened his hand, then, letting go, and nodded toward Roger.
Jamie remembered Mikey Mouse!!
“For your sake, I will continue—though for mine alone … I would not.”
God, my heart has fully broken these last few chapters. How utterly sad.
there was a pistol on the ground beside him, cocked and primed.
This answers a lot of questions I had about Alan during the whole debacle.
“So perfect. Her wee privates looked like a flower’s bud, and her skin sae fresh and soft.…”
Aaaaaaand this series has incest now. Joy...
“Ye canna hold a ghost at bay,” Jamie had told me. “Let them in.”
A++++ for bringing back a theme.
