In 1945, Claire Randall walks through a standing stone on one of the ancient stone circles that dot the British Isles and finds herself in Scotland in 1743. Hurtled back through time more than two hundred years to Scotland in 1743, Claire Randall finds herself caught in the midst of an unfamiliar world torn apart by violence, pestilence, and revolution and haunted by her growing feelings for James Fraser, a young soldier.