Outlander: What Happens to Bree and Roger’s Son Jem in the Books?

This article contains spoilers

Outlander season seven came to a mid-season stop this month with events hanging in the balance for the Fraser and MacKenzie families. While Jamie and Claire were relieved to leave the American Revolutionary War when they were tasked with accompanying a kinsman’s body back to Scotland, things were much more fraught for Roger and Bree, whose son Jem was kidnapped by one of Bree’s co-workers.

After going through a box of Roger and Bree’s letters from Jamie and Claire and finding out that wee Jem perhaps knows where the Jacobite gold is buried over in America, the dastardly Rob Cameron snatched Jem up and took him into the past, back through the trusty stones at Craigh na Dun, to retrieve the tantalizing treasure.

Or did he? One last word of warning: we will be discussing what happens to Jem next in Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander book series in subsequent paragraphs. If you don’t want to read any potential spoilers about the plot of the show, please click away now!

Hopefully, if you’re still reading, you’ll be relieved to know that in the Outlander books, Jem is still alive and well – and is not actually in the past at this point in the Outlander timeline. In fact, Rob Cameron takes him to the tunnel under Loch Errochty, where he is briefly discovered by a security guard who is then unfortunately shot by an accomplice of Rob’s.

Luckily, Bree and Mandy find Jemmy themselves by playing a game of “warmer, colder” after trapping Rob in the trusty priesthole at Lallybroch, but he is later freed by one of his accomplices, and the men also take the keys to Bree and Roger’s house, along with the Frasers’ rifle.

Fearing for their lives, Bree takes the kids to the Buchens’ house to hide away from Rob, but it’s not long before Rob stops by there asking questions about the Craigh na Dun stones while Bree is busy staking out Lallybroch with her shotgun. Jem tries to call the police to come and catch Rob, but Rob runs away. This is all too much drama for Bree’s friends, who think the presence of Jem and Mandy puts their own family’s lives in danger, so they bring Jem and Mandy back to Lallybroch.

It’s terrible timing. Just as the Buchens arrive with Jem and Mandy, Rob and his accomplices swarm on Lallybroch, and Bree has to fight Rob. Bree, Jem, and Mandy manage to get away with assistance from the head teacher at Jem’s school.

Bree, Jem, and Mandy escape to America and meet up with Joe Abernathy, who helps Bree figure out how supernaturally connected Jem and Mandy are to each other. The children hide from each other and estimate how far away they can be from one another before they’re no longer able to sense the other’s presence. Bree then decides to go back through the Craigh na Dun stones in Scotland with the children to try and find Roger, and he meets them in the past at Lallybroch.

Finally, the MacKenzie family travel to America together and reunite with the Frasers on Fraser’s Ridge.