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Ch 4 impressions: one gets a sense that Claes is on purpose needling Simon and it is a delight to see since Simon is just awful. I think he picked the most awful boat on purpose. I even suspect Claes knew Mabelie and Simon were hooking up based on body language. #HouseOfNiccolo

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 6h

What I like about both Lymond and Claes is how #DorothyDunnett establishes that these are the types of men women find *worth* sleeping with. This spec detail also affects how the reader builds the characters in their head.

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 14h

claes smiles so much i am much more scared of him than I am of lymond #DorothyDunnett

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 16h

Barely on chapter 2 but the charge Dunnett loaded is Claes smiled at Mabelie and mentioned he has a bewitching smile so I guess they'll have a romp soon eh? Easy way for DD to tell us Claes is attractive and magnetic. #HouseOfNiccolo #DorothyDunnett

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 17h

My guess is that Claes is very beautiful but people don't remember his face because they can tell he no one important, just a cute serving boy. Just finished ch1 of HoN (yes yes I know I still need to finish CM of LC) #HouseOfNiccolo #DorothyDunnett

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 20h

Am I supposed to be concerned for the person that Claes is making a happy smile towards? #HouseOfNiccolo

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 22h

Lmao the "gallant" with bright gold hair and a scorn on his face and a name that rhymes with Lymond. You are so funny, Dunnett #HouseOfNiccolo

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 23h

Ok I cheated a little and started HoN on the plane when I haven't finished CM. I like how at the very beginning Dunnett establishes that Claes likes girls and "females under 20" are not safe with him, hilarious. #HouseOfNiccolo

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Off tomorrow to Japan tomorrow and I have Checkmate ready on my e-reader as well as the first 2 Niccolo books to keep me occupied during the long flight. Oddly part of me is sad Lymond never made it to East Asia? But he isn't real? #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

I think it's really great when a character says something you don't fully understand and Lymond hears the same words and just crows with laughter and says a line of obscure poetry #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

I looked up some of the music from Lymond's time and my modern ear is not accustomed to music from the era. An odd mix of major/minor notes with no chorus or repetitive jingle. Part of me is sad the fictional character lived before Bach and Mozart's time, how silly I know. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

When Dunnett writes "it should..." and later on goes "instead," I like that because she is respecting the intelligence of the readers and understanding where our predictions may go and tells us to go elsewhere. #LymondChronicles #Checkmate

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Ok done w #RingedCastle can you imagine waiting 4 years for Checkmate? Thank goodness I am reading #LymondChronicles nowadays, though I admit these are not easy reads upon first pass.

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

“Or so Güzel had told him. And since Güzel seemed to know, he believed her.” Oh come on! The narrator told you in her own dry witted way what happened. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Lymond is constantly on trial lol. I think he is on trial during each book thus far from Game of Kings to Ringed Castle. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

imho part of Lymond's appeal as a character is that he is unusually perceptive, for people who feel like they weren't paid enough attention to, that type of quality of noticing and being thrown off from your old expectations is intoxicating #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

I think it's funny when the spying and intercepting of letters plots in Lymond get complicated and I can't quite follow but it is ok because I just go "the impression is that Lymond is very smart, ok" and then I laugh and call it a day. #LymondChronicles #RingedCastle

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Every time Dunnett describes Lymond raising his eyebrows I just imagine the most cold and bitchy look on his face, it's great. She doesn't tell you this, you just fit in the gaps on your own, which all the more endears your own imaginary Lymond to yourself. #LymondChronicles #RingedCastle

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The other thing I like about Dunnett's writing, aside from the characters, is how the books will suddenly unfold into a careful historical lesson about a very politically intricate moment in time for Scottish/English 16th history with the quality of a very intellectual essay. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

I believe Lymond is stress testing Austin when they talk outside the inn in Berwick. I do not believe Austin passes Lymond's stress test but I do not have evidence to confidently assert this at 100%. #LymondChronicles #RingedCastle

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Lymond Chronicles if adapted would have to be an animated series. You can't use a real man and have that much smooth razzle dazzle come across as believable rather than clumsy and cringe.

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Danny Hislop is a riot and I enjoy him very much so far. #LymondChronicles #RingedCastle

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

'The feelings of the Queen’s ladies, who had not seen him before, were something again.' - Ringed Castle a ladies' man through and through #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

"We hope to have the four children legitimized." Oh Lymond you little troll. And indeed, it was Dunnett's touch of author authority that Guzel and Lymond never produced kids together. #LymondChronicles #RC

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

I had a bloody awful time figuring it out on first read of GoK but now thinking back, Lymond flirts w Mariotta to goad Richard into going after him. Lymond's own way of protecting his family from him and his reputation. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

One of my friends is on bed rest and do you know how much effort it is for me to not visit and just pull up a chair with a book and go: "The Game of Kings. By Dorothy Dunnett. Opening Gambit. Lymond is back." #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

In PiF you get used to idea that there is a traitor among Lymond's inner circle and you carry that learning into RC, but by the time you're there, you care about the bigger program: how does he get back to Philippa? #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

What I like about the book series thus far is how each woman who comes into contact w Lymond is some different aspect of the feminine archetype, who comes to love Lymond in their own unique way. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

'That night was his last with Güzel, and he gave it to her, minute by minute as his parting present, with all the sureness, the elegance, the strange and delicate reticences she had come to know and respect. And her gift to him was no less.' Dunnett is skillful w break-up sex. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Slata Baba and Lymond's relationship is so profound and beautiful and tragic and I applaud Dunnett's creative decisions to show who Lymond is through their interactions. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

I think if we got Lymond's interiority we'd find him quite cute, brooding, and uptight and we'd still walk away liking him a lot but the effect of him being glamorous and a desirable romantic hero would be erased, that is the tradeoff. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

when Lymond apologized to Guzel for the smell of fish, I was like "what if Guzel also went 'me too'" bc we all know 'lips changed' + 'unceasing engagement' means: www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMDt... our boy went to town #LymondChronicles #RingedCastle

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Ok in a way it was decent of Guzel to not put the moves on Lymond until after he told her he wrote up the divorce papers. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

am I neurodivergent? says the woman who at 10pm on a wednesday is looking up facts on the novgorod trading region and what types of goods and services were exchanged between england and russia in the 16th century which destroyed guild monopolies of england #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

You know where I think in part Lymond gets his hypervigilance in part from? Gavin Crawford being an emotionally and physically abusive parent figure. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

my conspiracy theory: Guzel faked her own death and just went elsewhere (to where? China? idk). Either way, she is out of Lymond's life forever. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Why do you think the cover of Ringed Castle shows a wolf all divided up with some type of black rope? Is the wolf supposed to represent Lymond? Or an aspect of Lymond? Severed from itself but still dangerous? #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

I think, above all, I sense a non-ironic sense of earnestness in all the characters of #LymondChronicles that feels very old school. We live in a modern age of abundance and so many of us use irony and existentialist detachment to cope at our meaningless lives. That's not the attitude they hold.

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

'long-shafted hands caused a small moan of ecstasy to burst, very circumspectly, from Mr. Hislop’s baby-pink lips.' shaft eh, Dunnett. I see you. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Kuzum has a 'belligerent blue stare' in RC. You know, regardless of whose kid is whose, spiritually that child is Lymond's lol. #LymondChronicles #RingedCastle

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

'There he called on Sybilla, the Dowager Lady Culter, and delivered to her certain papers at Philippa Somerville’s behest.' My guess: another bomb that is going to detonate later eh? Big or small, idk, but will. #RC #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Ok just to prepare myself, I purchased a used set of House of Niccolo books. It will come in the mail within the next few days. #DorothyDunnett

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

so glad #DorothyDunnett taught me I don;t dislike fiction. I dislike fiction that is incoherent and doesn't answer questions i have later on, and the text and just expects me to hold incongruent premises in my head, which I find intolerable.

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

'The men laid him on these, at the feet of the one other person the carriage contained' and I love how DD gives you a "placeholder" detail and you just trust she'll fill it - sometimes soon, sometimes much later. #LymondChronicles #PiF

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

'He escaped from his room, left the precincts and acquired his prearranged horse with no incident at all, and merely the expenditure, as throughout his discreet dispositions from sickbed, of a modest outlay in bribes.' - PiF love love love how DD compresses time when needed #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Lymond is 5'6 (my height too!) and that makes Philippa shorter than 5'0 according to PiF which says Lymond is about a head taller. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

“nor was he allowed to taste his broth, his rice, his bread and sesame oil until he had recited the words he did not understand” That is a meager diet not enough for a child. Compare to the splendid feasts described on other pages. Heartbreaking for Khaireddin he deserved better #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Joleta gets babies drunk. Khaireddin can hold a drink. He recalls a long ship journey (prob Zakynthos to Algiers) and was always sleepy (alcohol). Described as 'thin' + adults 'forgotten to feed him.' Explains why a 3 year old looks 2. My heart breaks for that poor child. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

'Gabriel’s face remained pleasant. “You won’t take a little? Then have it all, my sorry, hungering slut,” he said lightly' “I won’t checkmate you. I’ll give you stalemate in a handful of moves. Stalemate….A draw, neither winning. You go free, and so do I.” Gabriel 'loves' him. #LymondChronicles

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Mee Zee @bokemonpie.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

was the n word known in scotland in the 60s as being an offensive term? bc i think when dunnett uses it, she uses it from the pov of a man we're not supposed to like so it was intentional (PiF chapter 17) #LymondChronicles

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