Today is October 23rd, and that means it’s officially and exactly one month until the release of Go Tell the Bees That I Am Gone, the 9th book in the Outlander series!
Anyone else planning their Thanksgiving week around the release of BEES? Just me?
ME: Okay, the book releases Tuesday, we have family arriving Monday, Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday… so if I somehow manage to stay up all night, every night reading, I can dedicate myself to the book and not offend my entire family by ignoring them…
Something like that, anyway.
In preparation for the release of this long- awaited book, I decided to treat myself to an Outlander-adjacent gift:
I haven’t opened the bottle yet… I plan to enjoy my first sips as I read chapter one of BEES!
And as if there’s not enough Outlander goodness on the horizon, we have season 6 of the Outlander TV series to look forward to in February 2022.
Meanwhile… let the one month countdown to BEES begin!
That wave of salty water lapping at your toes? It’s the happy tears of millions of Outlander fans, knowing that their long wait is finally coming to an end!
The 8th book in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series, Written In My Own Heart’s Blood, was released in 2014. And it’s been a long, long, loooooooong seven years since then.
A few weeks ago, Herself shared on Facebook that she’d finished writing #9:
Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone will be released November 23, 2021.
Yes, that’s this year! Seven months from now! Two days before Thanksgiving! (Apologies in advance for ignoring my family all the long weekend while I’m reading.)
According to the Amazon preorder page (here), the book will be 832 pages.
And for those who want to know, here’s the official synopsis:
The author of the #1 New York Times bestselling Outlander series returns with the newest novel in the epic tale.
The past may seem the safest place to be . . . but it is the most dangerous time to be alive. . . .
Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rising in 1743, and it took them twenty years to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to do the same.
It is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are at last reunited with their daughter, Brianna, her husband, Roger, and their children on Fraser’s Ridge. Having the family together is a dream the Frasers had thought impossible.
Yet even in the North Carolina backcountry, the effects of war are being felt. Tensions in the Colonies are great and local feelings run hot enough to boil Hell’s tea-kettle. Jamie knows loyalties among his tenants are split and it won’t be long until the war is on his doorstep.
Brianna and Roger have their own worry: that the dangers that provoked their escape from the twentieth century might catch up to them. Sometimes they question whether risking the perils of the 1700s—among them disease, starvation, and an impending war—was indeed the safer choice for their family.
Not so far away, young William Ransom is still coming to terms with the discovery of his true father’s identity—and thus his own—and Lord John Grey has reconciliations to make, and dangers to meet . . . on his son’s behalf, and his own.
Meanwhile, the Revolutionary War creeps ever closer to Fraser’s Ridge. And with the family finally together, Jamie and Claire have more at stake than ever before.
Are people excited? Well… the release was announced two days ago, and here are the sales stats from Amazon:
As for me, I’ve placed my preorder, I’m smiling insanely at random moments, and I’m gearing up for a MOBY (Written In My Own Heart’s Blood) re-read.
Yet another reason to feel like 2021 is really looking up!
Bookshelf Fantasies 