Outlander Book Club: An Echo in the Bone Chapter 70 breakdown

Just the Outlander chapter

We start off with Brianna finding Roger rebuilding the church at Lallybroch, and he’s doing it by hand, brick by brick. This is certainly a call back to Brian building Lallybroch for Ellen. Roger isn’t doing this for Brianna, though. He’s doing this to be closer to “them.”

Bree’s parents? That’s what she wants to know. It is partly true, but it’s also a connection to the past. Roger is rebuilding himself while he rebuilds the church. He has a lot of questions about who he is now and what he wants to do with his life. What did he want to do before Bree and Claire? What has the trip to the past made him?

Something Roger has struggled with up to this point is what makes him a good Christian. Is he right for a place as a minister? Was going after Bonnett the Christian thing? The alternative was allowing Bree to be raped and sold into slavery. Would that have been the Christian thing? I love how the books bring up these debates and allow us to see all sides.

Roger realizes that everything he has been through has been for a reason. There is still a mission for him to do, but he doesn’t know what that is yet.

There is a break in the story. A shadow appears at the door. William Buccleigh MacKenzie is there, and Roger immediately recognizes him. This is huge. And it’s clear that there is a big story to come for the two men. What’s interesting is that William is looking for sanctuary and comes upon the man he almost had killed.