The year is 1945. Claire Randall is a former British combat nurse, who has just returned to the Scottish Highlands following the war. Now reunited with her husband and on her second honeymoon, Claire touches a standing stone in one of the ancient circles along the British Isles. Suddenly, she is a Sassenach—an “outlander”—in a Scotland that has been ravaged by war. The year is 1743.

Thrust into a dangerous and violent era that threatens her life, Claire’s only chance of survival lies in a gallant young Scots warrior, Jamie Fraser. Claire soon finds herself torn between two very different men, in two irreconcilable lives.