Perhaps it is safest to hide in the past... But nothing is as dangerous as living there...

In 1746 Jamie Fraser and Claire Randall were torn apart by the Jacobite Rebellion and it took almost twenty years for them to find each other again. Now the American Revolution threatens to bring them the same woes.

The year is 1779 and Claire and Jamie are finally reunited with their daughter Brianna, her husband Roger and their children on Fraser's Ridge. Thus, a dream that they considered impossible came true.

But the aftershocks of the war are also felt in rural North Carolina. There is considerable tension in the colonies, and politics stirs up passions so hot they would make the devil hot. Jamie knows full well that his tenants are on different sides and that it won't be long before war shows up on his doorstep.

Brianna and Roger have their own worries: the danger that drove them to flee the twentieth century might catch up with them. Sometimes they have to wonder if the hardships of the eighteenth century - such as disease, hunger and the threat of war - are really a safer choice for their family.

Meanwhile, the opposing armies are slowly approaching Fraser's Ridge. And with the family finally together, the stakes are higher than ever for both Jamie and Claire.