The popular time-travel thriller “Outlander” will conclude with just one more season after season seven, which is presently on a midseason vacation.
The bestselling “Outlander” series and global phenomenon began over 30 years ago with the publication of the first book by the American author. Fans have been assured by this author that the tenth book will likely be the last one and, most importantly, that it will feature a happy ending for our beloved Scot and Sassenach.
Diana Gabaldon revealed that she has started work on book 10 a month after the release of the ninth book.
Gabaldon revealed to Town & Country that she had already started working on “the beginnings” of the forthcoming book, which she has not yet given a title, just one month after “Go Tell The Bees That I Am Gone” was released in November 2021.
“I have started writing that, but I’m just poking away at it little by little, because there’s so much interference from the book launch stuff going on that I can’t work with my usual focus,” she stated at the time.
Gabaldon continued: “It’s just beginning to bubble, like the tar pits at La Brea, these rising bubbles and there’s a lot of bones underneath.”
She revealed that she had “barely begun Book 10” on X, the former Twitter site, around six months later in May 2022.
Although Gabaldon has not yet provided an official publication date, it is expected to be published sometime in 2024 or 2026.
Gabaldon has said unequivocally on her website that she is unsure of the publication date of the tenth book, stating: “Sorry, I don’t know when I will finish Book Ten, much less when it will be published.”
According to Gabaldon, her “very rough guess” is that it will release “about three to five years” after “Bees,” giving us a broad window of time between 2024 and 2026.
Fans who had to wait seven years between the release of “Bees” and the eighth novel, “Written in My Own Heart’s Blood,” which was published in 2014, will undoubtedly be pleased to hear that.
Gabaldon has explained the long pause between those two books by saying that she was working on her most recent book while serving as a consultant for the television version.
She made the joke that it would be in her best advantage to finish the tenth novel as soon as possible in an interview with TV Insider this year. In the end, I am 71 years old. I have no idea how long I will last. “I want to make sure that I finish,” she murmured.
Though not much is known, Gabaldon has stated that it would end in 1800 and “will have a happy ending.”
According to Gabaldon, the novel will conclude at the beginning of the 19th century, so assuming Jamie and Claire make it to the very end, they would be 79 and 83 years old, respectively.
She stated that “the last book will have a happy ending, though I confidently expect it to leave the readers in floods of tears, anyway.”
On her official website and Facebook page, Gabaldon has been providing fans with sneak peeks into her unfinished work since February 2022.
To avoid giving away too much about the overall storyline of the book, most of the excerpts deal with the characters’ day-to-day activities, however a few have hinted at future story points.
The last episode will ultimately provide fans with the answers to questions they have been pondering about Jamie’s spirit for years. Since the first novel and the first episode of the Starz adaptation, fans have been wondering how and why Jamie’s ghost was observing Claire in 1945 before she took her dramatic fall through the standing stones.
In the website’s FAQ section, Gabaldon stated, “The ghost is Jamie; however, as for how it fits into the story, All Will Be Explained— in the last book.”
In an interview with the “Outlander Podcast” in 2014, Gabaldon disclosed Jamie’s ghost’s age in the scenario. She stated, “He’s about 25,” which begs the issue of what exactly is happening in the picture.
It’s interesting to note that he fights in and survives the Battle of Culloden at that age, thus his near-death experience during the combat may help to explain it.
Until the last book is out, readers won’t know for sure, but Gabaldon has revealed another fascinating fact about the ghost: in response to a fan’s question on X (previously known as Twitter), she said, “Ghosts don’t exist in a place where time has meaning.”
Though Jamie and Claire’s story may come to an end in the tenth novel, Gabaldon will continue to explore the “Outlander” universe in future works.
The author has revealed that she is working on a number of other stories related to Jamie and Claire. One of these stories is a prequel about Jamie’s parents, Brian and Ellen Fraser, who had an incredible forbidden love story that may rival Jamie and Claire’s.
“The story is woven in with the Jacobite Risings – there will be a lot of clan politics and other interesting things,” Gabaldon told the audience during her 2022 Edinburgh International Book Festival speech, according to The Scotsman.
She has given her Facebook audience various snippets from the untitled book, for those who are curious.
In addition, Gabaldon intends to write a novel dedicated to the enigmatic Master Raymond, the time traveller Jamie and Claire encounter in France and who Gabaldon refers to as a “prehistoric time traveller” who lived in 400 BC or earlier.
She said to Town & Country, regarding that novel: “I have the outlines of that, but for obvious reasons, I’m not working on it actively right now. It’s merely waiting for me to get to it.”
source: insider.com
