This book has its ups and down, but I'd say overall it was a very solid romance novel with something a little extra that makes it a step above the romance novels I've read so far. 
 The writing itself is superb, with lots of detail and an intellectual attitude to the world it creates, or rather, relives for us. I found the characters to be very engaging and relatable, with the exceptions of the "bad" guys who even have a surprising amount of depth to them. The plot starts off slow, but I found myself sucked in around chapter 14 or 15 and at that point I could no longer stop and read only a chapter a day. From that point on I found the book to be a series of excitement and then downtime which worked out rather well. 
 My only criticisms really are somewhat related to my praises. I found that there was too much detail at times. It was common that Claire would be asking a character about themselves and then we'd get a long drawn out story in reply. I have to be honest in saying that I found most of these stories boring, even if they contained interesting material. There's something about a character telling a story that makes it a lot less engaging for me. It's important to get to know characters, but I also don't need to be able to write the biography of Jamie. There were also a few points in the plot where I had no idea what was going on. Events would be described vaguely on purpose, but this only ended up confusing and annoying me. 
 Despite what I'd consider to be downsides, this book is very engaging and the romance is one for the ages. I'm probably going to continue on in the series at some point.