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The fiery trails of tracer bullets, as a wounded Spitfire falls from the sky.

A Jamaican plantation burns deep into the night.

A handful of heroic Highlanders fight their way straight up a vertical cliff to stand on the Plains of Abraham in a fiery dawn.

And a torch burns green, through the eerie surrounds of a Parisian cemetery, down into the mysteries of the earth.

Brace yourselves; this is going to be a long review.

Since this book is four separate short stories, I’m going to divide the review into four parts. Each story had its individual strengths and weaknesses, so this is the fairest way to do it. The four coffees above represent my impression of the book as a whole. For individual stories’ ratings, see the chart at the bottom of the page. The only over-arcing comment I have to make on A Trail of Fire is that Gabaldon’s writing style is, as always, impeccable. Someday I hope to have a vocabulary like hers.

A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows

I became a bit grumpy when I realized this story was in the A Trail of Fire collection. I’d unknowingly purchased it for Kindle months ago, not realizing it was in this collection when I preordered the paperback. So a quarter of the book was wasted on me, but oh well.

A Leaf on the Wind of All Hallows is the story of Roger’s father, whose plane went down during World War II. Gabaldon hinted in the main series that it might have gone down over or near a ring of standing stones, and in this story she explores that. It took me back to the first Outlander book, when Claire had to figure out all this time travel business. Only she didn’t travel by way of plane crash, so you can imagine how his situation is infinitely more complicated and traumatic.

This story has some touching notes of romance, but be warned — it is a tragedy. Fans of the series will likely know that going in, since facts about Roger’s parents’ fates have been sprinkled throughout the main books.

The Custom of the Army

The plot. Now here I have to shake my head a little. I’ve never gotten into the Lord John Grey spinoff series, probably because the more I read about him, the harder it is to suspend disbelief with regard to his exploits. He’s simply in the right place at the right time too often. In one of the author’s notes, Gabaldon admits that since Grey isn’t tied down to one place, she often chooses to put him at the most significant military or historical event of a particular year. Well and good, but a life can get too full, you know? That’s how I felt about John being present at the battle of the Plains of Abraham.

The Custom of the Army, in which Grey travels to Canada and participates in the attack against Quebec, felt like reading about drama for the sake of drama. The story begins strongly, but then lapses into contradictions and a time gap that confused me a little. By the end, it felt like a badly thought-out construct in order to get a key character to witness this important historical battle.

My non-spoilery rendition of the Big Contradiction:

Character 1: “There’s a problem, but I didn’t want you to deal with it, so I planned to make excuses for you.”

Character 2: “Wait, I want to deal with it.”

Character 1: “Good, I’ve already arranged for you to travel there.”

…because making plans and excuses simultaneously makes sense. Grey also crosses from England to Canada, all the way down the St. Lawrence to Quebec, in one month. Even in summer, that must have been a damn fast ship. And that problem he went to resolve? It resolves itself in the end. So convenient.

Grey always seems to find someone to hook up with in country, too. I’m not sure how I feel about that, because while it’s a common practice for soldiers, Grey’s particular situation seems to reinforce the stereotype that gay men are promiscuous. Short-term flings might be a necessity of life in the army, when one is constantly moving around, but he rarely forms deep connections, which squicked me a little. But this review is dragging on, so let’s skip over the bit where I explore the counter-argument (that Grey is also awfully prone to broken heartedness when he does get attached) and move on to…

Lord John and the Plague of Zombies

When I saw the title I questioned the need for zombies, even if John does travel to Jamaica during Voyager, but then I thought of the meme “because fuck you, that’s why,” and it all made sense. I find this strategy also solves conundrums like, “Why should I pay taxes?” and “Why is all the wine gone?”

So… zombies. Hmm. It’s an interesting enough topic, and here it works as a nice distraction in order to keep the central conflict from becoming the basis for a full-blown novel. Gabaldon certainly could have gone on for a while in regards to colonial problems in Jamaica. In Lord John and the Plague of Zombies Grey arrives to address a problem of rebellion/theft/terrorism, is promptly distracted by zombies and Obeah-men, and then treks off into the jungle in pursuit of the rebels, who may also be the zombie-makers.

I didn’t really feel satisfied at the end of this story, mostly because it’s a wild ride with lots of drama, but very little resolution. All the problems that were there when John arrived in Jamaica are still there. It’s definitely the weakest of the four stories.

The Space Between

Gabaldon is at her best when writing about tragedy or from a woman’s perspective, and The Space Between has both. Picking up after the events of An Echo in the Bone, the story follows recent widower Michael Murray and convent-bound postulant Joan MacKimmie, Laoghaire’s daughter. The story takes place primarily in Paris, and readers get to see a few familiar faces from the main series — Mother Hildegarde, Jared, Master Raymond, and the Comte St. Germain, among them. One thing is clear from their interactions with Michael Murray: Claire’s reputation in Paris has not dimmed, despite thirty years of absence.

The Space Between feels like it could have been part of the main series. It has the same atmosphere and tone as the Outlander books, and characters have the same propensity to fall into social, criminal, and supernatural tangles. I enjoyed this story the most out of the four, and would probably read it again given time.

I admire the way Gabaldon manages to represent Michael’s grief with believability and sensitivity, yet doesn’t allow it to overwhelm the rest of the plot. The story isn’t about him, per se, though is a very important character. The Space Between is about the Comte St. Germain and his scientific exploits. Much of Master Raymond’s story occurs off-page, though he is clearly valuable to the plot. I hope we get to see more of what he’s up to in Written in My Own Heart’s Blood. 

In The Space Between, Joan is a bit of a plot device, but since she is about to embark on a spiritual journey and this is a short story, I figure that’s all right. She can’t progress too far in the space of a few days, right? Normally I find religious characters odious and boring, but I rather like Joan. She’s got just enough wickedness in her to make things interesting.

In Summary

I don’t think I’ll ever fall in love with the Lord John Grey series, not even a little bit, but even when plots get farfetched, I have to admire the quality of Gabaldon’s prose. The dearest stories to my heart, though, are the ones that remind me of the central series. I’d recommend Trail of Fire for readers who love both series. If you’re only into one or the other, snag the individual stories as ebooks.