In 1945, Claire Randall, a former combat nurse, is back from the war andreunited with her husband on a second honeymoon--when she innocently touches aboulder in one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles.Suddenly she is a Sassenach--an "outlander"--in a Scotland torn by war andraiding border clans in the year of our Lord...1743.Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire's destiny in sooninextricably intertwined with Clan MacKenzie and the forbidden Castle Leoch.She is catapulted without warning into the intrigues of lairds and spies thatmay threaten her life ...and shatter her heart. For here, James Fraser, agallant young Scots warrior, shows her a passion so fierce and a love soabsolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire... and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.