Claire Randall, a married World War II combat nurse, mistakenly falls back in time to 1743. Forced by circumstance to marry Jamie Fraser, an outlawed Highlander, she finds herself falling in love and torn by her loyalties to two men in vastly different times. Claire must reconcile her modern mindset with this 18th-Century world amidst threats from ruthless Redcoats, volatile clan politics, and a brutal witch trial, and ultimately discovers that there is a fate worse than death.