SuperHeroBooks - Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (Lord John Grey)
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List Price: $25.00
Our Price: $6.99
Your Save: $ 18.01 ( 72% )
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Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385337496
ISBN: 0385337493
Label: Delacorte Press
Manufacturer: Delacorte Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 512
Publication Date: 2007-08-28
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: 2007-08-28
Studio: Delacorte Press
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: difficult to praise fully
Comment: a bit of a head-scratcher. On the one hand, the title character (a gay 18th sentury soldier who solves a mystery concerning his father's death) was intriguing enough to capture my attention, on the other, the writing style did not do any justice to the plot and I found my attention wandering more times then it should have. The characters seem to be channeling Georgette Heyer one minute and speaking like modern English people the next. Either style would have been acceptable, but the mish-mash seemed like the author kept forgetting the period. Was coffee really the widespread drink of choice in 18th century Britain? Would a man, even a gay man, react the way John did after his last encounter with the Scot?
I managed to get through it, but I think the book would have benefitted from a sharper focus on the part of the author, and better editing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed the Lord John character
Comment: After reading the Outlander series here Lord John is fleshed out and a fully likable, honorable character. His humor and his decisons even his relationships with his mother and older brother Hal were beleiveable and not contrived.
The story/plot moves along briskly and Ms Gabaldon provides ample historical and background information and details to make you mentaly envision the scenes.I like personally like learning something new while being entertained. I loved it and highly recommend this book and others of Ms Gabaldon. I could scarely keep my hands off it until the end.
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Summary: Couldn't put it down
Comment: This is the best book so far in the Lord John series. I've read all of Diana Gabaldon's books and am looking forward to more in the Lord John series. He is a very likeable leading man.
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Summary: Engaging as history and mystery!
Comment: I guess I'm one of the rare reviewers here who has not read the "Outlander" series. Although I can't recall how I learned about the "Lord John" series, am I ever glad I did. Ms. Gabaldon has imagined a character so complex and interesting that reading his story has given me a new intimate friend. (Or maybe I just wish he were!) Her evocation of time and place (Northern Europe, mid-eighteenth century) and the beliefs and mores therein is superb! Having read a lot of historical fiction, I have never encountered an author who more convincingly describes the cold and dreariness of a ride in a cold rain, the smells and confusion of battle, the pleasure of warm bath after slogging through mud, e.g., with such a feeling of authenticity. Remarkable! And it's clear that she is thoroughly conversant with the history of the time. I love learning something while I'm having a good time.
Ms. Gabaldon takes us into Lord John Grey's head and heart so that we get to know an intelligent, courageous, conflicted man who, though living in a time of superstition and narrow-mindedness, manages to make important contributions to his family and Crown. He sometimes seems a man out of his time, but he really does function well in it, considering that as a homosexual he is condemned to hiding his personal life.
This book deals primarily with Lord John's investigation into the seventeen-year-old murder of his father, the repercussions of which have had injurious affect on his immediate family, but there is so much more. The characters he encounters are believably drawn, as are their conversations. I love that through clever insight and cagey questioning he arrives at the solution we have all been awaiting. The scenes of war and love are potent. I expected to smell the fuses of the grenades. (BTW, who knew grenades were in use 300 years ago, and that grenadiers really tossed grenades and weren't just dressed-up soldiers? Not me, but I do now!)
I've read "... The Private Matter" and am reading "... The Hand of Devils." They are equally wonderful. I hope more books about Lord John and his adventures are forthcoming soon; but, in the meantime, I'm dusting off my copy of "Outlander" that I never opened and expect to be equally engrossed in writing that truly "takes me away."
Thank you, Ms. Gabaldon!
Customer Rating:
Summary: A part of the great Lord John Grey series
Comment: This was a fabulous book about one of my favorite literary characters - Lord John Grey. If you are a fan of the Outlander novels, (and even if you are not) you will thoroughly enjoy this read. Enlightening, surprising and always enjoyable.
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Editorial Reviews:
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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.
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