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Rate: 3.5/5

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Medium: Audiobook

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Overview (No Spoiler):

I have been loving this series since high school. It’s a bit mind boggling when you think about how long these characters have been a part of my life. My friend group in high school were insatiable readers and I attribute my eclectic style with how often our genre of preference would shift. Right around the romance novel phase, we found Outlander and it has held a soft spot for me ever since. While revisiting this series early in college, I read four Gabaldon books in a row, which actually led to my rule about never reading subsequent installments in a series back-to-back. By the end of this binge, I had grown thoroughly exhausted of Gabaldon’s writing style where Jamie and Claire would endlessly find themselves in impossible situations only find a miracle third way out. Having taken a sufficiently long break from this series, I was looking forward to reading what Gabaldon had in store for the Frasier family in Go Tell the Bees that I’m Gone.

Go Tell the Bees that I’m Gone is my first time reading anything in this series by audiobook and it was lengthy at over 50 hours. A few things I had forgotten about this series is how detailed Gabaldon’s writing style is. Much of this read is dedicated to the very mundane day-to-day life of settlers on the frontier around the Revolutionary War. The action is scattered throughout and often surprising and unexpected. While I enjoyed large swaths of Go Tell the Bees that I’m Gone, chunks of the relatively routine (boring) parts would pull me out of the story. That said, there is never ending, imminent danger that the family needs to address to pull the story along. 

Gabaldon’s writing style might not be the best for an audiobook format because throughout this book there are awkward leaps in the story where events are skipped and the details backfilled.. While in a physical book these jumps are not a big deal, with the audiobook, I kept having to check that I hadn’t accidentally fast forwarded or skipped a chapter. 

The bees were a fun addition to the story, especially how Gabaldon linked them to Claire and the rest of the family. As a beekeeper I appreciated how the bees gave peace to their troubled humans.

Ian is still one of my favorite characters and I enjoyed his arc the most in Go Tell the Bees that I’m Gone as he is forced to go on a journey that is filled with danger and emerged healed from his painful past. Will Jenny find love next? In general, all of the characters are vivid and full of personality, making them easy to love and become caught up in the outcomes of their fate.
Overall, Go Tell the Bees that I’m Gone is a wonderful return to a much loved series, though is filled with so much extra filler and fluff that sometimes the gap between key events becomes difficult to bridge.

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Additional Insight (Spoilers Abound):

• How can Jen and Mandy sense each other? What does it mean that David might not be a traveler?
• Is Jenny the Sechem’s second wife?
• When will Claire try her special healing out again?
• Will John be saved? Will Hal find Benjamin? 
• Was Amarantha telling the truth about Benjamin? Will William marry her? I really hope not.
• When will Ulysses come back? It is over now that the man they saved sent back the paperwork?
• Did Frank know that Jamie lived? Why would Claire not read the book? What does it mean that Frank haunts Jamie and Claire? Does he haunt Bree?
• Roger going into battle and not telling Bree made me so mad. How could he do that to them?
• Who was Hal trying to poison?
• What will William decide about his future?
• Who was the father to Agnes’ baby?
• What will Frances’ future hold?
• What will John Cinnamon find in London?

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