Outlander Book Club: Voyager Chapter 1 breakdown

Jamie survives Culloden in Outlander Book 3, Voyager Chapter 1

We start Outlander Book 3 today. Voyager Chapter 1 is all about Jamie’s time at Culloden. Most specifically, it’s all about how he survived.

Dragonfly in Amber ended with the reveal that Jamie had survived at Culloden. There wouldn’t be any more to the story if that wasn’t the case. After all, Claire would have remained in the 20th century, continuing her work as a surgeon and working on raising a strong and independent young woman.

However, finding out Jamie was alive left her questioning what to do next. Before we got to Claire’s continued search, we needed to jump back to Jamie’s time at Culloden. How did he manage to survive?

This is an excellent start to the book. It gives us a clear look at a man who just wanted to die. We also finally get a look inside Jamie’s mind, something that wasn’t possible with the first two books. This was the turning point for me when reading the books for the first time, finding the first-person narrative throughout the first two books too limiting.

We start with a 35-minute chapter, something that the TV show used almost entirely in the same way. Let’s break down Voyager Chapter 1.