Continuing a highly successful series can be something of a risk. Think The Next Karate Kid and Lethal Weapon 4. For Diana Gabaldon, the continuation of the Outlander series has been a refining evolution of both writer and story as wonderfully evidenced in the fourth volume, Drums of Autumn.

Spewed from the ocean by the force of a hurricane and cast away onto sandy shores, the Frasers find themselves in the New World, America in the turbulent years before the start of the revolution. Claire and Jamie, accompanied by Jamie's nephew Ian, his friend Duncan and his foster son Fergus, make their way from the banks of Georgia to Cape Fear, North Carolina, home of the largest settlement of Scottish Highlanders in the Colonies. On a parallel course are Brianna and Roger as they tread through the tricky maze of a budding relationship. Can their attraction for each other overcome the memories of what they experienced together? When Brianna looks at Roger, she remembers her mother leaving. When she hears his accent, she's reminded of the father she never knew.

Claire and Jamie discover an America where neighbor helps neighbor with nary a thought to what's in it for him; where the growth and prosperity of the nation are a concern to all and where the strangers encountered on the street are courteous, kind and friendly. It is a wild land however, uncultivated and uncivilized, harsh and cruel, with danger lurking in every shadow. The book documents well, under the guise of a novel, the shift in the world's attention from the European continent to America including the powerful motivations for so many to emigrate from one to the other. Clearly depicted are the abominations of slavery in the southern states. Slavery as told through the pages of a history book is gruesome; slavery as seen directly through the eyes of an intelligent, twentieth-century woman is horrific. Hindsight being twenty-twenty, Claire watches the birth of a nation with just such vision, enabling the Frasers to better deal with life as they find it, including relations with native Americans, dealing with slavery, and preparing for the pending war.

The angst of not knowing her biological father and growing concern over her mother's welfare, spurs Brianna to continue the research for evidence of them in history while plagued by guilt that this interest is somehow a betrayal to Frank Randall, the man who raised her. The information builds, as does the depth of feeling Brianna and Roger share for each other. Roger empathizes with her need and helps in the investigation but the information uncovered does more to disturb than to comfort and inevitably changes the course of each of their lives forever.

Drums of Autumn is intense in its must-read impetus; in reality it becomes quite difficult in certain parts not to jump ahead but to take the time to enjoy the finely crafted prose and encounter the shocking revelations when they were meant to occur. There is a subtle shift of emphasis from Claire and Jamie to the next generation but these characters are as real and engrossing as their ancestors and continue to fuel the fires of imagination.

Reviewed by Donna
© August 2005