Claire Randall, a housewife in Scotland in the 1940s passes through a circle of stones and accidentally travels through time. Claire finds herself in 18th Century Scotland and meets her soul mate, Jamie Fraser. Jamie lives in Scotland 200 years apart from Claire, amid war and disturbance. Claire falls in love with Jamie and decides she will remain in his time. But when Claire gets pregnant with Jamie's child, she is forced to return to her time for the safety of the baby. Claire raises her daughter, Brianna, with the husband she left behind, Frank Randall in America. Meanwhile Jamie is coerced into marrying someone else as well. When Frank dies Claire goes back to Scotland and finds a gravestone for Jamie Fraser. There is no date or indication of how he dies, but Claire makes up her mind to return to the past and try to save his life. Claire tells Brianna, now in her twenties the true identity of her blood father and leaves to reunite with Jamie hoping Brianna will be fine.

Claire finds Jamie and they officially get married. They embark on a number of adventures together, but Claire is continually ridden with the fear of losing him. After a ship accident, they end up in America where they seek out relatives and associates of the Fraser clan. Finding a few, they settle in North Carolina and along the way face the challenges of corrupt laws and politics, robbery, wilderness, Indians and more. Claire's luck and gift of seeing and healing and Jamie's strength and sharp instincts keep them alive.

Claire's daughter Brianna remains in Boston, Massachusetts USA and Claire asks a family friend from Scotland, Roger Wakefield, to watch over her. Brianna and Roger are two of the three people who know of Claire's travel through the stones into the past. Brianna and Roger can hear the stone's calling just as Claire could. When Claire leaves, Brianna becomes overwhelmed with anxiety about her mother's well being and curiosity to meet her real father. Brianna finds an old newspaper posting stating that her parents died in a fire less than ten years after her mother's return. She decides to travel into the past to find her parents and like Claire, she is motivated by hopes of changing their fate. Roger, who has fallen deeply in love with Brianna over the years, follows her into the 1700s with hopes of protecting her from any danger.

Nonetheless, Brianna gets raped by a known scoundrel and gets pregnant. Roger is mistaken for her rapist and sold by Jamie Fraser to a feared group of Indians. No one knows what Jamie has done and assume that Roger is missing. It is too dangerous to attempt time travel with the baby after its born so Brianna has nine months to decide whether to return to her own time without Roger. By the time Jamie realizes the mistake he has made with Roger, Brianna has chosen to stay. Roger is torn about remaining in the past, knowing that Brianna's baby may not be his. In the end he chooses to remain in the past with Brianna and the baby, and they are married.