A review by trin
Lord John and the Private Matter by Diana Gabaldon

2.0

The first in a sort of spin-off series from the [book: Outlander] books, which I have not read. Or rather, I started reading Outlander but stopped after about 100 pages because I just couldn’t get into it. I had a similar problem here. This is historical fiction, set in mid-18th Century England. (A period I was pretty appalled to realize I have rather limited knowledge of; limited, I mean, to [book: Tom Jones]—and not even the book, the movie!) Lord John Grey is a fairly interesting character: he’s gay, the first man he loved died tragically, and the second is in another country and in love with someone else. The plot seems like it could be interesting too: Grey accidentally observes that the man who’s engaged to his young cousin has the pox and must find a way to break off the engagement; there’s also a murder that may or may not be connected. Right away you’ve got promise of trips into London’s underbelly, full of brothels and molly-houses. And yet…I just couldn’t get into it, man! I mean, unlike Outlander, I did manage to finish, but I just never felt engaged, never felt involved. It’s not that it was bad—although the several chapters of infodump toward the end were not my favorite thing ever; in fact, I’m sure lots of you would actually enjoy it quite a lot. I think this may just be one of those things where a certain author’s style just doesn’t work for me. I’ll recognize that something is good or at least competent, but it’s just not for me. Based more on style than on topic, which seems odd, but I guess it can happen. The synapses fail to connect. I can’t get emotionally involved, and thus I can’t really care about what I’m reading.