Georgette Heyer sadly died before this novel was completed and what remains is less than half finished. The Lord John of the title was John, later Duke of Bedford, the son of Henry of Bolingbroke, who usurped the throne of his cousin Richard II, and the brother of Henry V, he of Agincourt fame. Georgette Heyer's novel takes us from John’s childhood through to 1413. This means that effectively the major events of John’s life are not documented. We do not see the death of King Henry IV (1413), or the build up to Agincourt and the attempted conquest of France. Joan of Arc does not make an appearance and we do not meet either of the women whom John married. His future career up until his death in 1435 is briefly detailed in an epilogue. What My Lord John is, however, is an interesting depiction of growing up in a royal environment in the Middle Ages. As a young man he lost his mother, was sent out to board with other nobles rather than staying at home and ultimately took on a position of responsibility for both governance and military affairs in the turbulent Northern Marches of England. I really enjoyed this book. Georgette Heyer was good at creating male characters although her characteristic humour and delight in the language of the period she writes about does not flow as well as in many of her Regency-era novels. In part this is probably because she wrote substantially less set in the Middle Ages than in the nineteenth century, so they lack the same depth. Also her medieval novels (and I suspect most of the draft of My Lord John also) were written fairly early on in her career. It is also of course harder to use obsolete words from the age of Chaucer in a book than it is to include slang from the nineteenth century where the meaning is generally easier for a non-specialist to grasp. However this does not mean that she did not succeed in creating a world for us to immerse ourselves in for a few hours. Pick up My Lord John and you enter a world of (male) camaraderie and treachery, tricks and sports, battles and executions...and sadly come out of it abruptly as the novel breaks off mid-sentence. It seems futile to point out that I wish it had been completed.
Before reading this novel I expected to rate it 4 or even 5 stars, as I am aware of the author's talent, and I'm interested in the period (late 1300s/early 1400s), yet it's proved a real disappointment.One of Ms Heyer's greatest strengths is her dialogue, but this book is dominated by a dull third person narrative, and most of the dialogue lacks the author's usual wit and is weighed down further by an overuse of archaic vocabulary. I accept that it's good to be authentic, but here the reader - except those who are knowledgeable regarding 14th- and 15h-century words and phrases - is barraged with unfamiliar dialect. Yes, there's a glossary, but it's a pain to be constantly checking the back of the book during every dialogue exchange. Therefore, you either flit back and forth or just guess what these archaic words mean.Another minus point is that for the most part the author tries to name-check everyone who was living at the same time as my lord John - who's Henry IV's son and Henry V's brother, by the way - and even refers to many people who've died, who also have no relevance to the story. It seems like Ms Heyer wanted to use this book to express her historical interests, which makes me think she would've been better off writing a non-fictional work. To me, the beauty of good historical fiction is that it serves to bring life and colour to historical figures by developing their characters and adding in bits that are unknown to historians. A history book generally cannot do this, for it must stick to the facts and avoid romanticizing events. This novel feels more like a dull history book with just the odd scene dramatized - and not too well at that. To be fair, Ms Heyer died before finishing what turned out to be her last book, so perhaps the novel would have been revised a few more times and been better than this. This we will never know ...
What do You think about My Lord John (2006)?
This book was disappointing for me. The life of John (to me) is very interesting and I find him to be a fascinating character, however this book did not do him justice. It rambled a lot off story explaining unnecessary historical facts and read more like a biography than fiction. Her thick use of Medieval English, particularly at the beginning, was challenging to get through and did not help the flow of the storyline. Though I would say that part was educational if you are looking to brush up on your Medieval English because she does provide a glossary of terms in the back. To top it all off, after toiling through 3/4 of the story, it ends mid-sentence because the author became ill and eventually passed away (which I was unaware of when starting this book and probably wouldn't have read it had I known). It left me wanting a more satisfactory conclusion to an unsatisfactory story.
—Mackenzie
I really wanted to like this one; I mean, I'm now pretty interested in this period of history, and it's Georgette Heyer. It's really nothing like her Regency romances, but that I expected: it's a piece of work she approached very seriously, and intended to be her most important work. It's a pity that it's so densely written, so overstuffed with all she knew, that it's very, very slow going. In a sense, I ended up approaching it the same way I do Norse sagas: just read it and soak it up, without worrying too much over who is related to whom and to what degree. A second reading then fills in the gaps.I don't have time for said second reading right now, and I'm not certain I'm interested enough to give this that much of my time -- part of Heyer's genius is with readable stories and characters you can get involved with, but even quarter of the way through I wasn't really involved yet. Too much of it seemed to come in summary, rather than through interactions between characters.Still, maybe...
—Nikki
I was surprised by how good this book was. It was projected to be a trilogy, but the author died before she could complete it. The story takes place around the time of Richard II and Henry IV and is centered around the early years of John Duke of Bedford, Henry IV's 3rd son and Henry V's brother. It was surprisingly well researched and, not at all surprising for Georgette Heyer, gives a real sense of what life must have been like for these boys as they grew to young men. Every character is fully realized.
—Rebecca
