Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsGreat expectations - great disappointment
Reviewed in Australia on 10 December 2021
Like so many readers of the Outlander series, I was anticipating quite the story in Go Tell The Bees That I've Gone. As usual, it's a whopping book, but if you removed all the description of every little thing and every minor character, it would be half the length. Very little substantive plot, just loose ends being tied up and not very imaginatively. Basically, it's a bit like the Gathering in Drums of Autumn - so much endless description of things of no interest and no value to the story. The plot didn't actually get going until Part Five of the book. Up to that point I was disinterested, even in Claire and Jamie! And honestly, the character of William should be integral at this point but the author seems to be playing him as a support character. His supposed romance is flat, flat, flat. There was none of the warmth and passion I've felt in reading other books in the series. Diana's penchant for description hit its heights in this book. One paragraph stated that Claire got out of bed, cleaned her teeth and went downstairs for breakfast - really? Part Five actually got the story moving along somewhere and ended in a way that does make me wonder what it going to happen in Book Ten. I'll buy that if I'm still alive, just to see the final story lines and find out about Jamie's ghost as Diana has promised. My honest opinion is that if this author was previously unknown and she presented this manuscript to a publisher, it would be on the slush pile. The story had very little to do with the title, other than the fact that Claire now keeps bees. Oh dear.
