.

I’m not sad about reading it because I like Lord John Grey but they felt disjointed and unnecessary for the most part.

"Lord John and the Hand of Devils" by Diana Gabaldon was a delight to read.
Across all three novellas, I loved the crazy plot twists, the writing style, the characterization...
Besides, obviously, Lord John, my favourite characters were Tom Byrd and Stefan Von Namtzen. I hope I'll get to see more of them in the next books!

3.5⭐️’s

Feeling reluctant to completely let go of Diana Gabaldon’s world, I decided to give her Lord John Grey stories a try. While not nearly as complex or intriguing as her Outlander novels, I found the change of pace and less high-stakes and high-stress storylines to be enjoyable. As this is a collection of three different short stories/novellas, once again I find it difficult to come up with a fair rating, however, since I greatly enjoyed 2 out of the 3 more than the first story (“Lord John and the Hellfire Club” was a bit too brief and complex for me to ever feel I got a true understanding of what was happening) I think my rating is an accurate representation of my unbalanced enjoyment. My only real complaint is the fact that while it is possible to read all three stories together in isolation from the rest of Gabaldon’s Lord John Grey stories, for someone who enjoys reading things in order, I found it frustrating that there are two full-length novels that take place in-between each of the stories. As I did not want to completely exhaust every story in the series in one marathon session, I was faced with the choice of going against my instincts and reading out of order. A minor complaint for what was an enjoyable collection and has left me excited to see more of Lord John Grey’s adventures.

Lord John and the Hand of Devils is a collection of three short stories featuring Lord John. I did enjoy how they each had a supernatural mystery to them that was less supernatural then it seemed.

Lord John and the Hellfire Club is more of a slice of life story than a true mystery, it's quite short but does give some insight into George Everett that comes in handy in the first novel.

Lord John and the Succubus was a fun mystery about an apparent succubus while John is stationed in Prussia. We are introduced to Stephan von Namtzen who provides somewhat of a romantic interest for John.

Lord John and the Haunted Soldier follows the events of the 2nd novel, LJ and the Brotherhood of the Blade. Lord John is brought before a board of inquiry regarding a cannon explosion that resulted in the death of an officer and Lord John launches his own investigation into the matter of faulty cannons. Intrigue abound here.

Definitely worth the read to get the full picture of Lord John's life and to get the tiny background details that make some of the novels that little bit better.

With each book, Lord John comes more to life. I never considered him a major player in the Outlander series but he has become a favorite character in his own with this set of books.

Lord John and the Haunted Soldier was the best of the 3 stories, and it proves to be a very good sequel to the novel Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade.

I was moved by the letters Lord John writes (before burning them), to Jamie Fraser; especially the last one where John explains how he can be himself with Jamie, because he *knows*. His love and friendship is just perfect and so gut wrenching.

I has already read the first two stories in this compilation, but the third, the Haunted Soldier, doesn't appear to have a home of its own on Goodreads (and I'm too lazy to figure out how to add it!). Listened to the Audio version. I'm not a huge fan of the John Grey novellas... But in Echo, it became clear that there are some important crossovers to the main series.