I love Lord John Grey. I kind of want to be best friends with him. Or, at least take him out for drinks and commiserate about how he has absolute shit luck with romance. He seems okay with his life, but I just feel so bad for him, like, all the time.
Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade is the second novel in the Lord John spin-off series which takes place during the twenty year timespan of Voyager. You don’t need to have read the Outlander novels to enjoy these books, though. They stand very well on their own.
The Lord John books are essentially historical mysteries set during the time of the Seven Years War. Lord John is a an officer in the British army. He is also gay, something which was absolutely taboo at that time, and punishable at times by execution. The central mystery of the book features Lord John and his family once again becoming embroiled in the scandal that killed his father years before. Because of the scandal, which ended with the Earl supposedly killing himself, and LJG’s older brother refusing to take his title, the remaining Grey family has had to step carefully lest they too be accused of treason.
The thing is, LJG’s father didn’t kill himself; he was murdered, and his mother made it look like suicide in order to keep her children safe. So when pages from his father’s journal start showing up as threats in his family’s mail, LJG is drawn back into the scandal, trying to dig up the truth. All the while this is going on, his mother is about to remarry, bringing with him a new stepbrother called Percy, with whom John becomes romantically entangled. LJG’s investigation also brings him into contact with Jamie Fraser, the Scottish Jacobite prisoner he fell in love with during his time as warden of Arsdmuir prison. Jamie does NOT reciprocate his feelings, but he may have information that could clear his father’s name.
Despite being a well-educated man of means, Lord John Grey is a constant underdog, forced to live in a world where he can never be himself. His constant transgressions provide a backbone of conflict that runs throughout even the most mundane of his interactions. Nobody in his life suspects his double life, and at points he’s forced to act as if he was “normal” and punish those who commit the same acts he does privately in order to remain safe. It’s an institutionalized hypocrisy that all these secretly gay men lived with daily, and Gabaldon manages to portray her world as one where Lord John is far from the only person in this precarious social situation. It’s a fascinating and heartbreaking dynamic.
I’m SUPER excited for the next book in this series, which is supposedly the story of how Jamie and Lord John finally become friends. I am beyond ready for Jamie to stop acting like such an ass about LJG’s sexuality. He behaved atrociously in this book to LJG, cultural norms or not. I’m ready for them to be BFF now.
I’ve often wondered if Herself knew what she was creating when she wrote that little one-off scene in a wood near Prestonpans. He’s such an interesting guy. I want to buy him a case of Abita and shoot the shit about his friends.
I’m fairly certain she didn’t. Both times I’ve seen her speak she’s been very adamant that she doesn’t outline her books, or even plan ahead.