Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by sage01
Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade by Diana Gabaldon
4.0
warning: spoilers follow!
I think this is definitely the best of the Lord John books so far. I'm really delighted to see a mainstream bestseller write a vividly sexual queer romance. Heaven knows we've seen Lord John show enough repressed desire, but it's lovely to see him with a lover and in more explicit detail than I expected.
The mystery plot was a bit more convoluted than I considered necessary, especially since I'd completely forgotten who the villain was by the time he arrived at the end -- hundreds of pages after his last mention. I'm still not even sure what his motive was -- was he going to expose someone, or was he merely framed as a conspirator? I'm afraid it's a muddle.
But! I can say that the scenes set in Prussia were fabulous. Gabaldon has a real knack for writing 18th century warfare. And unlike most hero-books, the men on the field simply felt like ordinary men. No one came off as larger than life or patterned off a superhero. They just seemed like regular guys who happened to be scared shitless AND fighting a gruesome war. And that was refreshing to me because the lack of fear dehumanizes a character and I wanted all these people to feel human.
I love Stephan like a much-loved thing. I want Percy to grow the hell up, but I don't trust him to. And I really loved the darker turn of John's character at the end, where he does have secrets and a much looser morality than we've seen before. I hope Gabaldon will stick around in this universe for a while -- and I hope that book sales figures will encourage her publisher to let her.
I think this is definitely the best of the Lord John books so far. I'm really delighted to see a mainstream bestseller write a vividly sexual queer romance. Heaven knows we've seen Lord John show enough repressed desire, but it's lovely to see him with a lover and in more explicit detail than I expected.
The mystery plot was a bit more convoluted than I considered necessary, especially since I'd completely forgotten who the villain was by the time he arrived at the end -- hundreds of pages after his last mention. I'm still not even sure what his motive was -- was he going to expose someone, or was he merely framed as a conspirator? I'm afraid it's a muddle.
But! I can say that the scenes set in Prussia were fabulous. Gabaldon has a real knack for writing 18th century warfare. And unlike most hero-books, the men on the field simply felt like ordinary men. No one came off as larger than life or patterned off a superhero. They just seemed like regular guys who happened to be scared shitless AND fighting a gruesome war. And that was refreshing to me because the lack of fear dehumanizes a character and I wanted all these people to feel human.
I love Stephan like a much-loved thing. I want Percy to grow the hell up, but I don't trust him to. And I really loved the darker turn of John's character at the end, where he does have secrets and a much looser morality than we've seen before. I hope Gabaldon will stick around in this universe for a while -- and I hope that book sales figures will encourage her publisher to let her.