A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Jamie is a Scottish Highlander who is married to and deeply devoted to Claire; he is also Catholic. He is the father of Brianna and has an illegitimate son, William, from a previous relationship. Jamie’s past is one of brutal violence and long-term isolation and imprisonment, although many of these details have been explored in former books of the series rather than in this novel. Although he embodies the violence of his time, he balances brutality with his sense of justice and compassion, and with his knowledge of the future.

Jamie is a natural leader: brave, strong, smart, and highly attractive, as evidenced by the multiple women throughout the novel who show interest in him. He will go to the ends of the earth for Claire, and often must rescue her from bandits and mobs, confirming his role as the archetypical hero. Jamie experiences flashbacks and nightmares associated with his past, with the ghost of his arch nemesis Jack Randall often visiting him. Randall once raped Jamie, complicating his role as a hero by also portraying him as a victim of sexual assault. For most of the novel, Jamie pretends to be a Loyalist, but with his wife and daughter’s knowledge of the future, he knows he will eventually be on the side of the rebellion. When that time comes, Jamie leads his people to victory with skill.

Brianna is Claire and Jamie’s daughter, mother to Jem and Mandy, and wife to Roger. A Catholic, she is tall, with flaming red hair. She is also intelligent and beautiful. She constantly tries to improve life in the 18th century by “inventing” things from her previous existence in the modern world. She is skilled in many areas, including pottery, paper-making, and inventing.

Brianna grew up thinking Claire’s other husband (in the future) was her father before she met Jamie. She is very tough, having survived much brutalization in colonial America. Her traumas affect her less than her parents, however, and her compassion is similarly boundless, even for tormentors like Bonnet. Brianna is feisty like Jamie and intelligent like Claire, often confronting Roger and others about injustices. She worries about her husband cheating and then leaving her for the life of a minister. Ultimately, their love overcomes these challenges, and she returns to the future with Roger and their children. Brianna also enacts the role of damsel in distress when the pirate Bonnet again captures her.

Married to Claire, Roger is father to Jem and Mandy. Roger is Scottish, like Jamie, but from the future, and a Protestant. He’s a good fighter and provider but is less violent than the men of the 18th century. Deeply community oriented, Roger always seeks to help the less fortunate. This leads him to pursue ministry, but he abandons it to save Brianna from the pirate who had captured her and once raped her, an act that made everyone question Jem’s paternity. Many women are also interested in Roger, but he stays true to Brianna, despite temptation. He is a good father to Jem (and later, Mandy) but is often away helping others. At one point, Roger tells Brianna that he doesn’t feel the need to help her as much because she doesn’t need help, which suggests that he prefer she rely on him as the 18th century women tend to do. It’s only when Brianna is the “damsel in distress” that he abandons his attempts at becoming a minister to save her, implying that he wants Brianna to be dependent on him.

Ian is Claire’s and Jamie’s nephew. He’s a Scottish Catholic but has spent many years living among the Iroquois and then the Mohawk. He believes both in the Catholic doctrines of his childhood and the Mohawk religious traditions of his present. Ian is unconventionally handsome, with tribal tattoos along his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. Ian has, as his companion, a faithful wolf dog named Rollo. Ian used to be married to a Mohawk woman, but she left him for another Mohawk after suffering multiple miscarriages. Ian has a history of innocence spoiled by violence, most of which occurred in a previous book in the series.

Tom Christie is a Scottish Highlander who knew Jamie back in Scotland; both now live on Fraser’s Ridge. He and Jamie are rivals, but both begrudgingly respect each other after having shared in traumatic prison experiences together. In love with Claire, Christie is like Jamie but less: less brave, less dashing, less funny. Nonetheless, he proves a vital ally to Claire. Christie’s wife cheated on him with his brother, producing a child, Malva, who Christie raises along with her half-brother, Allan. After Malva’s murder, Christie takes the blame, thus sacrificing himself for Claire and Allan.

Malva is Claire’s mentee, a bright, smart, and beautiful young woman who everyone assumes is Tom Christie’s daughter. It’s later revealed she is his niece who has been raped by her half-brother Allan for many years, eventually resulting in pregnancy. After Malva claims Jamie is the father of her child, Allan murders Malva in Claire’s garden to keep Malva from reneging on the plan. In the end, Malva acted out of desperation, and her love and respect for Claire remained steadfast.

Jem is the boisterous young son of Roger and Brianna. For much of the novel, his parents fear that he’s the son of Stephen Bonnet, the pirate who captured and raped Brianna. When they cut his hair and see a mole exactly like Roger’s, however, they realize that he is biologically Roger’s son.

Another of Jamie’s former Scottish men, Arch Bug lives on Fraser’s Ridge now with Mrs. Bug, his wife and the Fraser’s housekeeper. They are loyal and devoted, although they still do secretive things that serve only themselves, including stealing the gold from Jocasta’s husband’s grave and murdering Lionel Brown for his discovery of this fact.

Stephen Bonnet is a pirate who once captured and raped Brianna, calling Jem’s paternity into question. He’s a notorious thief and human trafficker. After kidnapping Brianna again, he is sentenced to death by drowning, but Brianna takes pity on him and kills him in a more humane way. He functions as a villain who creates tension in the subplot with his possible parentage of Jim, but he also helps to show Brianna’s compassionate character.

Wendigo Donner is a fellow time traveler whom Claire meets when she’s abducted by bandits. He traveled to the 18th century to try to prevent the eventual holocaust of the native people. He desperately wants to return to his time, eventually almost murdering Claire and destroying the Big House to find the gemstones. Though he isn’t present through much of the novel, his character catalyzes the Big House fire that the novel constantly foreshadows.