Juliet E. McKenna

Another Kindle book that was 99p, but this time as a promotion. The author tweeted the book was reduced, and since I’d never read anything by her – she mostly writes fantasy, which, er, Wheel of Time reread above aside, I don’t normally read – and The Green Man’s Heir is urban fantasy, which I definitely don’t read… But the plot sounded interesting so I thought it worth a go. And I’m glad I did give it a punt. The narrator is Daniel Mackmain, a jobbing carpenter who happens show more to be the son of a dryad. Which means he is plugged into the mythological world based on landscape. So when a woman is brutally murdered near where Mackmain lives, and a dryad gives him enough to clues so he thinks he might be able to solve the case… The Green Man’s Heir is a mashup of mystery novel and fantasy novel but it works because it’s centred on its hero and not focused on its central crime. The story moves on from the murders and pulls in romance, but it all ends in a place that feels entirely a consequence of what has gone before. This is clearly a book by someone who knows what they’re doing. And if their earlier fantasy series have not made the big time, I hope this one does – there’s a sequel – because it’s good stuff. It may be a bit Mythago Wood meets Midsomer Murders, but it does it well and it certainly does it a great deal better than the last of those two. show less

This is the third book in a series which hadn’t been planned. The first book, The Green Man’s Heir, was, I believe, a one-off, but proved so successful McKenna dug out an old project and rewrote it to provide a sequel, The Green Man’s Foe. Which did equally well. And with good reason. These are fun, well-crafted urban fantasy novels, more Mythago Wood than fang-banger, which is a decided advantage. In this novel, written from scratch as part of the series – and I’m not alone in show more hoping there are more – has narrator Dan Mackmain, son of a dryad, in the Fens, preventing a nasty piece of work from using John Dee’s crystal ball, as used by Edward Kelley, for nefarious – and, it has to be said, petty – purposes, which unfortunately are having an adverse effect on the various folklore creatures of the Fens. So not only do we have local English mythology, and Mackmain’s life as revealed in earlier instalments, but also John Dee and his alchemy. It’s a clever mix, and it works extremely well. I thought this a much better book than the preceding volume, and its combination of modern life, English folklore and Elizabethan occultism worked perfectly. Given The Green Man’s Foe was nominated for awards, then this one deserves to win them. show less

This is the eighth book in the series, which is pretty impressive given, I believe, the first one wasn’t actually intended to be published, and certainly wasn’t planned as the first book of a series. But the premise lends itself to multiple stories, and the novels so far have been very good… so why not?

Daniel Mackmain is the son of a human man and a dryad. As a result, he can speak to, and interact with, creatures from English folklore. He is also occasionally given tasks by the Green show more Man. Over the course of the preceding seven books, Mackmain has given up his work as a jobbing carpenter, and settled down as estate manager at a stately home, and has a girlfriend who is a hydrology consultant and a Swan Maiden. Mackmain has also built up a network of people like himself, half-human half-folkoric creature, across the UK.

In The Green Man’s Holiday, Mackmain and his girlfriend, Fin, have taken a week off and rented a small cottage in the Mendips. First, the phones stop working, then their car, and then someone dumps a newborn on their backdoor step. They contact the police and the baby is returned to its distraught parents.

But it’s not a real baby, it’s a changeling. And Mackmain realises this. So he and Fin need to find the real baby, and then swap it for the changeling. They find the baby easily enough – through a portal at some nearby standing stones. But Fin becomes trapped on the other side of the portal while rescuing the baby, leaving Mackmain to resolve everything on his own. Without rousing the suspicions of the police.

But not, unfortunately, before attracting the attention of a hag (really nasty pieces of work, introduced in an earlier novel in the series). So Mackmain has to foil the hag, return the baby, and somehow find a way to get Fin back.

They’re a lot of fun these books – and yes, you do learn about British folklore. They deserve to be popular. I’ll happily read them as long as McKenna writes them. In this one, the odds seemed stacked higher than previously against Mackmain – of course, he’s sure to win through, but it feels like a close run thing. I admit a lot of the parts of England where these stories take place are unknown to me, and might as well be a foreign country. I mean, when I hear “Cotswolds” and “Mendips”, I think Midsummer Murders and what I call “chocolate box England”. The Green Man series may use similar locales, but there’s nothing sanitised (or even whitewashed) about them in the books, and they’re very much set in the UK of the twenty-first century.

Not my favourite of the series so far, but they’re all good so there’s only a tiny difference in it. Recommended. show less

I think one reason I usually tire quickly of series is that it seems to me that the main characters become static. But in this case, McKenna consistently keeps thing fresh. I count that among the reasons I continue to enjoy the series and to look forward to the next book.