Jamie Fraser, former Jacobite and reluctant rebel, is already certain of three things about the American rebellion: The Americans will win, fighting on the side of victory is no guarantee of survival, and hed rather die than have to face his illegitimate sona young lieutenant in the British armyacross the barrel of a gun.

Claire Randall knows that the Americans will win, too, but not what the ultimate price may be. That price wont include Jamies life or his happiness, thoughnot if she has anything to say about it.

Meanwhile, in the relative safety of the twentieth century, Jamie and Claires daughter, Brianna, and her husband, Roger MacKenzie, have resettled in a historic Scottish home where, across a chasm of two centuries, the unfolding drama of Briannas parents story comes to life through Claires letters. The fragile pages reveal Claires love for battle-scarred Jamie Fraser and their flight from North Carolina to the high seas, where they encounter privateers and ocean battlesas Brianna and Roger search for clues not only to Claires fate but to their own. Because the future of the MacKenzie family in the Highlands is mysteriously, irrevocably, and intimately entwined with life and death in war-torn colonial America.