GO TELL THE BEES THAT I AM GONE

By Diana Gabaldon, Century, £20 (ebook £9.99)

HHIII

Diana Gabaldon releases the hotly-anticipated ninth instalment in her Outlander series. Picking up where the last book left off, Claire and Jamie Fraser are reunited with their daughter Brianna and her family in 1770s North

Carolina. Slow-paced to start, the latest addition weaves complicated plot lines, a weighty cast and an improbable melodrama. You often feel the book could have cut 200 pages and several characters . At times compelling, the latest instalment sadly doesn’t live up to the original novel – or the pacey TV adaptation.