In 1945, Claire Randall is on a second-honeymoon tour of the Scottish Highlands with her husband Frank when she touches a standing stone at the ancient circle of Craigh na Dun and is hurled back to 1743. Alone in a Scotland riven by clan warfare and the coming Jacobite rising, she is quickly caught between the sadistic Captain Jonathan Randall — Frank's ancestor and a menace in his own right — and the men of Clan MacKenzie, who regard her with suspicion as a possible spy.
To protect her from Randall's attentions, Claire is compelled into marriage with Jamie Fraser, a young, outlawed Highland warrior. What begins as a practical arrangement between strangers grows into a fierce, all-consuming partnership, even as Claire is torn between the husband centuries in her future and the man beside her now, and forced to decide how far she will bend history, and herself, to survive.
Diana Gabaldon's Outlander launches an epic series that blends meticulously researched history, adventure, and a passionate, hard-won romance, following Claire and Jamie across decades and continents in a story about the collision of two very different worlds.