Journal Entry 1 by Kyrissaean from Littleton, New Hampshire USA on Friday, February 29, 2008

Unabridged, 9 hrs 40 min. Audible download burned to CD's.

This is a collection of 3 Lord John novellas ranging in time from 1756-1758. (So, starting just after he returns to London from Ardsmuir with The Hellfire Club story that was previously in limited publication.) Same excellent narrator who did Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade. I think the middle story, Lord John and the Succubus, was my favorite -- and I'm pretty sure I've read an excerpt of part of that before. The third is Lord John and the Haunted Soldier.


From Publishers Weekly
The indefatigable Gabaldon, who has made the British 18th century her own, offers a trio of novellas about Lord John Grey, whose minor role in the Outlander novels (concerning Jacobite Jamie Fraser and including A Breath of Snow and Ashes) has become a major fictional spinoff (Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade, etc.). The three mystery-adventure novellas of this volume span 1756 to 1758, in settings packed with dark secrets—and therefore dangers—for the soldier-hero with secrets of his own. The first novella finds Lord John swearing vengeance in London for a murdered government official, leading him to a deconsecrated abbey where members of the political elite indulge their basest desires. The second pits Lord John against a succubus that plagues his Prussian encampment, and combines humor with military strategy and supernatural myth. The third, most complex narrative finds Lord John investigating the cause of a cannon explosion in the English countryside that results in a fellow officer's death. Gabaldon brings an effusive joy to her fiction that proves infectious even for readers unfamiliar with her work or the period. A foreword and introductory notes add background on the book's evolution.