50 books: lord john grey and the brotherhood of the blade
Title/Author: Lord John Grey and the Brotherhood of the Blade by Diana Gabaldon
Page Count/Book Type: 494
Genre: Historical Fiction/Mystery
Back of the Book: It's been seventeen years since 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 -- and John is convinced that someone is taunting the Grey family with secrets from the grave. So he turns to the only man he can trust: the Scottish Jacobite James Fraser. 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 or not his family's honor is worth his life.
Page One: Chapter One All in the Family
London, January 1758
The Society for the Appreciation of
the English Beefsteak, a Gentleman's Club
To the best of Lord John Grey's knowledge, stepmothers as depicted in fiction tended to be venal, evil, cunning, homicidal, and occasionally cannibalistic. Stepfathers, by contrast, seemed negligible, if not completely innocuous.
"Squire Allworthy, do you think?" he said to his brother. "Or Claudius?"
Hal stood restlessly twirling the club's terrestial globe, looking elegant, urbane, and thoroughly indigestible. He left off performing this activity, and gave GGRey a look of incomprehension.
"What?"
"Stepfathers," Grey explained. "There seem remarkably few of them among the pages of the novels, by constrast to the maternal variety. I merely wondered where Mother's new accquisition might fall, among the spectrum of character."
Hal's nostrils flared. His own reading tended to be confined to Tacitus and the more detailed Greek and Roman histories of military endeavor. The practice of reading novels he regarded as a form of moral weakness; forgiveable, and in fact, quite understandable in their mother, who was, after all, a woman. That his younger brother should share in this vice was somewhat less acceptible."
However, he merely said, "Claudius? From Hamlet? Surely not, John, unless you happen to know something about Mother than I do not."
Grey was reasonably sure that he knew a number of things about their mother that Hal did not, but this was neither the time nor the place to mention them.
This book is my absolute favorite in the series, and one I have actually read twice because I think it's just that entertaining. Gabaldon introduces two of my favorite characters in this particular novel, Captain Stefan von Namtzen, a Hanoverian soldier, and his lovely dachshund named Gustav. Even though Gabaldon has set Lord John Grey up as this man who is desperately and hopelessly in love with Jamie (this is my only gripe with his character, and with her writing, because she won't let him let go), there is so much chemistry with the (straight) von Namtzen that I was excited to learn that not only does he make an appearance in the later novellas but, when I asked Gabaldon about him possibly making a reappearance, learned that he does! Hurrah!
I can't even begin to describe how much I ship them. Best book ever. My copy is signed, etc, etc.
I don't know if I can actually do serious reviews for these because I'm really biased, even if I think I might be the only one out there who is in the series just for him.