Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade by Diana Gabaldon is the second entry in the series featuring one of the minor characters from Gabaldon's Outlander series. In this one, Lord John is striving to find out the secret behind his father's "suicide"--which Lord John knows for a fact was a murder. His quest to discover the truth takes a roundabout journey through friends, family, and the military and along the way, a romance develops for John despite the fact that his heart belongs to another.
Lord John is a fascinating character. He's complex, he has integrity, and he's deliberately deceitful when the circumstances warrant. He is also a homosexual in a time when just the thought of such unnatural love would banish a man into exile and possibly even cost him his life. Gabaldon gives Lord John a well-rounded personality so that his homosexuality is not what defines him; it's what complicates him. Well-written and intriguing, this is a good addition to the series and a nice companion to the Outlander stories.
The reviews at Amazon range from the gushing to the digusted, and many of those who are disgusted seem to be most offended by the graphic sex scenes. I tend to believe that if the sex was heterosexual rather than homosexual, there would be more praise for the novel as a whole than cries of depravity. I admit to feeling as though I didn't really need all the information I was given, but I do feel it made me understand Lord John the person better and it did make a gut-wrenching betrayal even more poignant. As I state in my own review, more puzzling to me was a scene between Jamie Fraser and Lord John late in the book; I'm still unclear why Lord John felt the need to say what he did, though I do understand his need to speak frankly and honestly to someone who could be objective.
My own amazon review can be found at http://tinyurl.com/2mprlx. I hope you'll take a look and decide for yourself if you like it. I can recommend this one, but I'd advise anyone who is at all squeamish when dealing with homosexuality to take a pass.
~taminator40
1 comment:
"Gabaldon gives Lord John a well-rounded personality so that his homosexuality is not what defines him; it's what complicates him."
Thank you coming up with the words I had been reaching for but couldn't quite grasp. You have defined what makes me like Lord John so much perfectly.
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