“What are Diana Gabaldon’s Best Books?” We looked at all of Gabaldon’s authored bibliography and ranked them against one another to answer that very question!

We took all of the books written by Diana Gabaldon and looked at her Goodreads, Amazon, and LibraryThing scores, ranking them against one another to see which books came out on top. The books are ranked in our list below based on which titles have the highest overall score between all 3 review sites in comparison with all of the other books by the same author. The process isn’t super scientific and in reality, most books aren’t “better” than other books as much as they are just different. That being said, we do enjoy seeing where our favorites landed, and if you aren’t familiar with the author at all, the rankings can help you see what books might be best to start with.

The full ranking chart is also included below the countdown on the bottom of the page.

Happy Scrolling!

The Top Book’s Of Diana Gabaldon

20 ) Naked Came the Phoenix

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 19
• Amazon: 19
• LibraryThing: 20

The promise of discretion and pampering-and a long-overdue reconciliation with her mother-draws Caroline Blessing, the young wife of a newly-elected Congressman, to the fancy Phoenix Spa. But after her first night in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains, Caroline wakes to find the rich and famous guests in turmoil and under suspicion: the spa’s flamboyant and ambitious owner has been murdered. As the secrets come out-and the body count rises, can Caroline keep herself from becoming the next victim?

19 ) Lord John and the Private Matter

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 18
• Amazon: 18
• LibraryThing: 18

Diana Gabaldon introduced millions of readers to a dazzling world of history and adventure — a world of vibrant settings and utterly unforgettable characters. Now one of these characters, Major Lord John Grey, opens the door to his own part of this world — eighteenth-century London, a seething anthill of nobility and rabble peopled by soldiers and spies, whores and dukes. Great Britain is battling France for supremacy on three continents — and life is good for a soldier. The year is 1757. On a clear morning in mid-June, Lord John Grey emerges from London’s Beefsteak Club, his mind in turmoil. A nobleman and a high-ranking officer in His Majesty’s Army, Grey has just witnessed something shocking. But his efforts to avoid a scandal that might destroy his family are interrupted by something still more urgent: the Crown appoints him to investigate the brutal murder of a comrade in arms, who may have been a traitor. Obliged to pursue two inquiries at once, Major Grey finds himself ensnared in a web of treachery and betrayal that touches every stratum of English society — and threatens all he holds dear. From the bawdy houses of London’s night-world to the stately drawing rooms of the nobility, and from the blood of a murdered corpse to the thundering seas ruled by the majestic fleet of the East India Company, Lord John pursues the elusive trails of a vanishing footman and a woman in green velvet, who may hold the key to everything — or nothing. The early days of the Seven Years War come brilliantly to life in this historical mystery by an author whose unique and compelling storytelling has engrossed millions of readers worldwide.

18 ) Phoenix Noir

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 20
• Amazon: 15
• LibraryThing: 15

Brand-new stories by: Diana Gabaldon, Lee Child, James Sallis, Luis Alberto Urrea, Jon Talton, Megan Abbott, Charles Kelly, Robert Anglen, Patrick Millikin, Laura Tohe, Kurt Reichenbaugh, Gary Phillips, David Corbett, Don Winslow, Dogo Barry Graham, and Stella Pope Duarte. Patrick Millikin is a bookseller at the Poisoned Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale. As a freelance writer, his articles, interviews, and reviews have appeared in Publishers Weekly, Firsts Magazine, Paradoxa, Yourflesh Quarterly, and other publications. Millikin currently lives in central Phoenix.

17 ) > Lord John and the Succubus, novella published in Legends II, edited by Robert Silverberg

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 14
• Amazon: 20
• LibraryThing: 15

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16 ) Lord John and the Haunted Soldier

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 15
• Amazon: 11
• LibraryThing: 19

The new novella Lord John and the Haunted Soldier was published in the 2007 Delacorte Press collection Lord John and the Hand of Devils alongside previously-published novellas Lord John and the Hellfire Club (1998) and Lord John and the Succubus (2003). As Haunted Soldier is a direct follow-up to her novel Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, Gabaldon pushed the publication of the Hand of Devils collection until after the novel’s release. Picking up right after the events of Brotherhood of the Blade in 1759, Grey searches for the culprit behind a suspicious cannon explosion as others seek to blame him or his half brother for the incident.

15 ) Lord John and the Hellfire Club

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 16
• Amazon: 11
• LibraryThing: 17

Outlander character Lord John Grey finds himself in 19th-century London investigating the death of a red-haired man. Soon he is mixed up in the affairs of Sir Francis Dashwood and his notorious Hellfire Club.

14 ) Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 12
• Amazon: 15
• LibraryThing: 13

In her much-anticipated new novel, the New York Times bestselling author of the Outlander saga brings back one of her most compelling characters: Lord John Grey–soldier, gentleman, and no mean hand with a blade. Here Diana Gabaldon brilliantly weaves together the strands of Lord John’s secret and public lives–a shattering family mystery, a love affair with potentially disastrous consequences, and a war that stretches from the Old World to the New. . . . In 1758, in the heart of the Seven Years’ War, Britain fights by the side of Prussia in the Rhineland. For Lord John and his titled brother Hal, the battlefield will be a welcome respite from the torturous mystery that burns poisonously in their family’s history. Seventeen years earlier, Lord John’s late father, the Duke of Pardloe, was found dead, a pistol in his hand and accusations of his role as a Jacobite agent staining forever a family’s honor. Now unlaid ghosts from the past are stirring. Lord John’s brother has mysteriously received a page of their late father’s missing diary. Someone is taunting the Grey family with secrets from the grave, but Hal, with secrets of his own, refuses to pursue the matter and orders his brother to do likewise. Frustrated, John turns to a man who has been both his prisoner and his confessor: the Scottish Jacobite James Fraser. Fraser can tell many secrets, and withhold many others. But war, a forbidden affair, and Fraser’s own secrets will complicate Lord John’s quest. Until James Fraser yields the missing piece of an astounding puzzle, and Lord John, caught between his courage and his conscience, must decide whether his family’s honor is worth his life.

12 ) Lord John and the Plague of Zombies

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 11
• Amazon: 15
• LibraryThing: 12

Lord John Grey, a lieutenant-colonel in His Majesty’s army, arrives in Jamaica with orders to quash a slave rebellion brewing in the mountains. But a much deadlier threat lies close at hand. The governor of the island is being menaced by zombies, according to a servant. Lord John has no idea what a zombie is, but it doesn’t sound good. It sounds even worse when hands smelling of grave dirt come out of the darkness to take him by the throat. Between murder in the governor’s mansion and plantations burning in the mountains, Lord John will need the wisdom of serpents and the luck of the devil to keep the island from exploding.

12 ) Lord John and the Hand of Devils

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 13
• Amazon: 11
• LibraryThing: 14

Diana Gabaldon, the New York Times bestselling author of Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade and the wildly popular Outlander novels, delivers three tales of war, intrigue, and espionage that feature one of her most popular characters: Lord John Grey. In the heart of the eighteenth century, here are haunted soldiers . . . lusty princesses . . . ghostly apparitions . . . dark family secrets. And here Lord John will face enemies who come in the guise of friends, memories in the shape of a fiery-haired Scot named James Fraser, and allies who have the power to destroy him with a single blow. . . .

11 ) Besieged

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 17
• Amazon: 6
• LibraryThing: 11

10 ) The Custom of the Army

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 10
• Amazon: 11
• LibraryThing: 10

Previously included in the anthology Warriors. Diana Gabaldon, bestselling author of the acclaimed Outlander series, weaves an engrossing tale of war, history, and suspense in this original novella—available exclusively as an eBook—featuring returning hero Lord John Grey. London, 1759. After a high society electric-eel party leads to a duel that ends badly, Lord John Grey feels the need to lie low for a while. Conveniently, before starting his new commission in His Majesty’s army, Lord John receives an urgent summons. An old friend from the military, Charlie Carruthers, is facing court-martial in Canada, and has called upon Lord John to serve as his character witness. Grey voyages to the New World—a land rife with savages (many of them on his own side) and cleft by war—where he soon finds that he must defend not only his friend’s life but his own.

9 ) The Scottish Prisoner

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 9
• Amazon: 6
• LibraryThing: 9

In this highly-anticipated new novel, Diana Gabaldon brings back one of her most compelling characters: the unforgettable Lord John Grey – soldier, gentleman, and no mean hand with a blade. Set in the heart of the eighteenth century, Lord John’s world is one of mystery and menace. Diana Gabaldon brilliantly weaves together the strands of Lord John’s secret and public lives. Capturing the lonely, tormented, and courageous career of a man who fights for his crown, his honor, and his own secrets, Diana Gabaldon delivers breathtaking human drama, proving once again that she can bring history to life in a way few novelists ever have.

8 ) The Fiery Cross

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 7
• Amazon: 6
• LibraryThing: 8

The year is 1771, and war is coming. Jamie Fraser’s wife tells him so. Little as he wishes to, he must believe it, for hers is a gift of dreadful prophecy—a time-traveler’s certain knowledge. Claire’s unique view of the future has brought him both danger and deliverance in the past; her knowledge of the oncoming revolution is a flickering torch that may light his way through the perilous years ahead—or ignite a conflagration that will leave their lives in ashes.

7 ) Outlander

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 8
• Amazon: 6
• LibraryThing: 6

Hurled back in time by forces she cannot understand, Claire is catapulted into the intrigues of lairds and spies that may threaten her life, and shatter her heart. For here James Fraser, a gallant young Scots warrior, shows her a love so absolute that Claire becomes a woman torn between fidelity and desire—and between two vastly different men in two irreconcilable lives.

6 ) Dragonfly in Amber

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 6
• Amazon: 6
• LibraryThing: 7

For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland’s majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones …about a love that transcends the boundaries of time …and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his ….

5 ) Drums of Autumn

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 5
• Amazon: 2
• LibraryThing: 5

In this breathtaking novel—rich in history and adventure—The New York Times bestselling author Diana Gabaldon continues the story of Claire Randall and Jamie Fraser that began with the now-classic novel Outlander and continued in Dragonfly in Amber and Voyager. Once again spanning continents and centuries, Diana Gabaldon has created a work of sheer passion and brilliance….

3 ) Voyager

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 4
• Amazon: 2
• LibraryThing: 2

Their passionate encounter happened long ago by whatever measurement Claire Randall took. Two decades before, she had traveled back in time and into the arms of a gallant eighteenth-century Scot named Jamie Fraser. Then she returned to her own century to bear his child, believing him dead in the tragic battle of Culloden. Yet his memory has never lessened its hold on her… and her body still cries out for him in her dreams.Then Claire discovers that Jamie survived. Torn between returning to him and staying with their daughter in her own era, Claire must choose her destiny. And as time and space come full circle, she must find the courage to face the passion and pain awaiting her…the deadly intrigues raging in a divided Scotland… and the daring voyage into the dark unknown that can reunite or forever doom her timeless love.

3 ) An Echo in the Bone

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 2
• Amazon: 2
• LibraryThing: 4

Jamie Fraser, erstwhile Jacobite and reluctant rebel, knows three things about the American rebellion: the Americans will win, unlikely as that seems in 1778; being on the winning side is no guarantee of survival; and he’d rather die than face his illegitimate son — a young lieutenant in the British Army — across the barrel of a gun. Fraser’s time-travelling wife, Claire, also knows a couple of things: that the Americans will win, but that the ultimate price of victory is a mystery. What she does believe is that the price won’t include Jamie’s life or happiness — not if she has anything to say.

2 ) A Breath of Snow and Ashes

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 2
• Amazon: 1
• LibraryThing: 3

A Breath of Snow and Ashes continues the extraordinary story of 18th-century Scotsman Jamie Fraser and his 20th-century wife, Claire. The year is 1772, and on the eve of the American Revolution, the long fuse of rebellion has already been lit. Men lie dead in the streets of Boston, and in the backwoods of North Carolina, isolated cabins burn in the forest. With chaos brewing, the governor calls upon Jamie Fraser to unite the backcountry and safeguard the colony for King and Crown. But from his wife Jamie knows that three years hence the shot heard round the world will be fired, and the result will be independence — with those loyal to the King either dead or in exile. And there is also the matter of a tiny clipping from The Wilmington Gazette, dated 1776, which reports Jamie’s death, along with his kin. For once, he hopes, his time-traveling family may be wrong about the future.

1 ) Written in My Own Heart’s Blood

Review Website Ranks:

• Goodreads: 1
• Amazon: 2
• LibraryThing: 1

It is June 1778, and the world seems to be turning upside-down. The British Army is withdrawing from Philadelphia, with George Washington in pursuit, and for the first time, it looks as if the rebels might actually win. But for Claire Fraser and her family, there are even more tumultuous revolutions that have to be accommodated.Her former husband, Jamie, has returned from the dead, demanding to know why in his absence she married his best friend, Lord John Grey. Lord John’s son, the ninth Earl of Ellesmere, is no less shocked to discover that his real father is actually the newly resurrected Jamie Fraser, and Jamie’s nephew Ian Murray discovers that his new-found cousin has an eye for the woman who has just agreed to marry him.

Diana Gabaldon’s Best Books

Diana Gabaldon Review Website Bibliography Rankings