Kevin Hearne

I was trying to decide whether to continue with Kevin Herne's Iron Druid series ( I enjoyed 'Hounded' but the next two didn't do much for me) when I stumbled across his 2024 novella, 'The Hermit Next Door'.

I was intrigued by the premise and hooked by Annalee Scott's narration on the audiobook sample. I put my other books aside and spent a pleasant afternoon listening to the novella.

I liked Winnie Mae Chisholm's sense of humour, which shone through even as she dealt with her grief over her show more husband’s death. Her relationship with her teenage son felt positive, pragmatic and believable. I enjoyed watching her deal with an intrusive neighbour and an overbearing school principal with steel beneath her Southern charm. I admired her refusal to be cowed when the people around her used redneck stereotypes to judge her and her son.

The initial encounter with the reclusive neighbour next door was very well done. I liked how, once Winnie Mae overcame the shock of discovering Mr Fisher's true identity, she remained focused on practical questions, the answers to which would protect her and her son.

I was disappointed by the ending. The final transition felt rushed and over-simplified. It was like moving from a nuanced portrait to a roughed-out sketch. The ideas were fine, but the delivery was threadbare.

Even so, it was an entertaining read. It reminded me how much I enjoyed Kevin Hearne's humour. I think I'll give his short story collection, 'Oberon’s Bathtime Stories' (2025) a try. show less

Atticus, Oberon and Granuaile are back! Tricked is the fourth book in the Iron Druid Chronicles by Kevin Hearne. Events pick up not long where book three left off. Spoilers will be for the previous book as some of this story deals with the fall out from Atticus's last adventure.

Having survived his trip to Asgard, Atticus knew there would be repercussions. With the rest of the Norse pantheon out hunting for him, Atticus makes a deal with the Navajo trickster-god Coyote, who agrees to help show more Atticus in return for a small favor. When one is dealing with a trickster-god it should come as no surprise when he plays his tricks on you and boy does Coyote pull one over on Atticus!

Coyote is fun and I'm glad Hearne decided to play with this myth. I like how his small request, while a little unusual, seems like a fairly harmless way to help his people right up until the "gotcha" catches up with Atticus. How does Atticus not expect something like this after all his encounters with gods over the last three books? As the title suggests, the idea of pulling a trick is a theme throughout the story. I think the winner of most surprising trick goes to Lief - I did not see that one coming!

Due to where the last three books have taken the story, many familiar characters no longer make an appearance. This allows Hearne to focus on our two primary characters, filling in a lot of background on Atticus and Granuaile. I like that we now have more motivation for why Granuaile wants to become a druid. Learning some of Atticus's ancient past was also quite interesting and for the first time the character starts to feel more like his 2000-year-old self and not just a young, modern guy. The relationship between the two of them also gets a lot of attention and I like how they've managed to keep the master/apprentice relationship instead of going straight into a romance. I'm sure the romance will still happen, but it's going to be another book or two away.

Oberon, as always, steals the show. Many of his observations are pure comedy gold and always make me laugh out loud. He even has his moment of true heroism and it made me a little teary eyed.

While over all things are still action packed and fun, the story suffers somewhat from middle book syndrome as it has a lot of work to do to set up the remainder of the series. I think I can see several potential plot threads to be worked out over the next five books and have several guesses as to which ones will become important.

I listened to the audio book narrated by Luke Daniels. I cannot say enough good things about his performance. This guy is amazing. show less

I love when authors offer novellas or short stories related to a main series, but also separate from it. Since such tales are unrestricted by the overarching storyline, there’s more opportunity to expand the mythology and build characters. The Grimoire of the Lamb is fantastic example of why this works so well.

In the Chronicles, all religions/mythologies/belief systems are manifest. So, along with the irish gods and goddesses of Atticus’ culture, we have Norse gods, Indian gods and more show more also running amok. With so many pantheons, it’s nearly impossible to give them all a chance to take center stage. In this novella, Egyptian gods are given their time in the limelight in an exciting tale of Atticus’ before the events of Hounded launch the series.

Atticus keeps a trove of rare magical books and when a dark wizard manages to steal one, he has to face the wrath of Bast to get it back. This story was very well constructed, with lots of planning by Atticus to accomplish his goal – material I find more interesting than the action scenes (though they are also excellent!) Atticus’ enemy is far more dangerous than he first supposed.

Overall, this was a fantastic read. It isn’t necessary to understand events in the novels, but fans should not miss it. Highly recommended. show less

I kind of loved this when I read it a couple of years ago. I tried the audiobook for the second book and was driven off by Luke Daniels's rendition of Oberon. Recently I (shall we say) came across Hounded in audio, and decided to give the medium another shot. While I tolerated the Oberon voice better this time around (I'll come back to that), unfortunately I enjoyed the book less.

See, I love Harry Dresden. Really, really love. Like hands-clasped hearts-in-eyes "My hero!" love. And one show more incident not too far into Hounded illustrated very clearly why I don't and will never feel that way about Atticus O'Sullivan. The Morrigan, with a fine disregard for 21st century proprieties is confronting him in his store, stark naked. Two frat boys straggle in hoping to score some pot, see a beautiful naked woman, and react in the only way stoner frat boys could possibly react. The Morrigan takes offense at their temerity and issues their death warrant. Atticus mildly tries to derail her vengeance, but she is set on killing those who dared look upon her and make note of her nudity, and he gives a mental shrug. Oh well. Guess they'll die. And that's the end of that episode. Now, unless I'm gravely mistaken, that is not how the story would run if it was Harry and not Atticus by-standing; I can't believe Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden would not have found a way, some way, to save the two morons, however undeserving they might be – and however much of his own blood and pain it might cost him.

I can't help being judge-y about a great and powerful druid whose two thousand years have honed him into a really very self-serving and self-centered person.

It was also a little troubling that he takes moral objection to Laksha's nasty habit of bumping souls out of their bodies – it's terrible and unforgivable – but the slightly eye-widening body count he racks up is perfectly fine. He excuses it at some point by pointing out that his druidic beliefs include reincarnation – killing someone just ensures that they'll be moving on to their next life that much sooner. But Laksha's faith says much the same thing.

Good lord, werewolves in this universe can't control themselves better than to just change in front of a muggle? That's pathetic.

I did very much like "Shut up. I'm Irish." But I was otherwise not nearly as favorably impressed by Hearne's take on Irishness this time around. Yeah, Atticus O'Sullivan is not one of my favorite people right now.

And, sadly, neither is his hound Oberon. I loved him to pieces when I first read the book, as most people seem to. This time I had a harder time reconciling the not-quite-smart but very-much-not-stupid dialogue assigned to him with the fact that he's an adult Irish wolfhound. It made me a little queasy, actually – what did Atticus do to him to make him this way? At times he came off as a child, irrepressible and sometimes silly; at times he came off as much more intelligent, pulling out references that seemed unlikely, and providing tactical and philosophical insight; then a little while later he'd be making me cringe again with his obsession with Genghis Khan. I didn't remember the inconsistency in his portrayal, but it felt glaringly obvious this time. And the whole French poodle fixation was nauseating. That little tag at the end in which he gets his surprise made me surprisingly – well, again, queasy. That's kind of my takeaway from Oberon this go-round: deep uneasiness.
Not to mention that this time round I was for whatever reason less forgiving of what was basically a ripoff of H. Beam Piper's Fuzzies, in which adorable furry teddy-bear-appearing sentient [sic] creatures develop obsessions on historical figures and throw themselves into recreating those figures as accurately as diminutive furry creatures can.

The narration by Luke Daniels was excellent – mostly. Accents, and voices young and old, male and female, stoner and werewolf and goddess – all well done. But you know what I still hated? Oberon. Every single time he voiced a line from the wolfhound I expected it to end with a "Ruh roh, Raggy!" or a full-on silly Don Messick Scooby giggle. This might have had a lot to do with my Oberon issues described above – but not everything.

Some books you just want to read over and over, and love more with each revisit. Some books, apparently, should be read only once. show less