The Green Man’s Foe by Juliet E McKenna

Publisher - Wizard’s Tower Press

Published - Out Now

Price - £17.00 paperback £4.99 Kindle eBook

When you do a good job for someone, there’s a strong chance they’ll offer you more work or recommend you elsewhere. So Daniel Mackmain isn’t particularly surprised when his boss’s architect brother asks for his help on a historic house renovation in the Cotswolds.

Except Dan’s a dryad’s son, and he soon realises there’s a whole lot more going on. Ancient malice is stirring and it has made an alliance in the modern world. The Green Man expects Dan to put an end to this threat. Seeing the danger, Dan’s forced to agree. The problem is he’s alone in a place he doesn’t know, a hundred miles or more away from any allies of his own.

A modern fantasy rooted in the ancient myths and folklore of the British Isles.

When you hear ‘British Countryside’you think of something very green, a simple life of farmers and probably thatch cottages and a morris dancer or two. In reality though 21st century rural life is full of complexities - navigating trade rules; kids growing up in an increasingly mechanised industry finding fewer jobs and nature itself is being impacted by changes in our climate. Imagine what all of this means when we get the creatures behind the myths and folklore of the U.K. noticing. In Juliet E McKenna’s highly enjoyable The Green Man’s Foe we return to the strange life of Daniel Mackmain; son of a human and a dryad and now occasionally working for one of Nature’s biggest supernatural powers with a strange case of ghosts, rural crime and monsters to investigate (while I do admit there is one Morris dance).

Daniel Mackmain is shown in a dream an ancient house where an old man is dying worried about the future. He sees the Green Man (an ancient power of nature) and knows a new task is being set for him. The next day he is asked to manage the renovation of a large house in the Cotswolds - the same house he saw in his dreams. Upon arrival he finds a place with a reputation for dark magic, unexplained deaths and in the woods an eerie tree full of dead birds. While a stranger nearby is lulling the local teens with offers of drugs, wealth and power. Dan has a lot to untangle or more innocent people will die.

What I loved reading this tale is how genuinely real McKenna makes the story feel. It helps here that we have all the stories narrated by Dan himself who is not a wisecracking young detective but more a builder and tradesman who has seen a few things be it battling monsters or learning how to break a bottle for a fight. He’s level headed, practical and dryly sarcastic and his more matter of fact approach grounds the story. Added to that the location this small Cotswold house feels grittier than we expect. Drugs, poaching, burglaries and more are active threats. We see that for young people this provides a very difficult place to find work and grow up making people feel hopeless and when a mysterious man offers a way of escape we cannot be surprised they take it.

This story is a intriguing mix of mysteries. A house wrapped up in post WW1 spiritualism and magical cults. A lake that has a dark past linked to ancient myths and Dan’s enigmatic foe acting as a menacing Pied Piper and a pleasingly equal force to face to to Dan too. As the story confirms the links between all three get explored and again I liked the depth the story has as I felt the history of this place still impacting the past.

On top of which things do not get dull for Daniel. He has to navigates fights, magical creatures, the local not quite a witch, the press and police plus keep his day job. McKenna throws all these obstacles in the way she introduces the idea of perhaps more avatars for these old powers being around. Who can be trusted and who needs to be watched carefully? There is a genuine sense of danger and in remote locations where there are no streetlights or phone signal you can suddenly feel quite alone. Creepy houses, woods and waters all give the story an unusual atmosphere that something supernatural is around. As the story progresses the magical elements get more pronounced and tie back to events in the first book that suggests the darker powers of the world see now as a time to strike back against the intruding humans

This is a very very enjoyable series I’m very glad to be finally catching up on. This second book in the series would still work as a nice jumping in point but for readers of the first seeing how characters develop and Dan’s increasing understanding of his world(s) is very rewarding. A fine mystery, lots of eerie events and a deliciously evil set of villains all await you gentle reader. I’m definitely looking forward to the next book very soon. A series going strength to strength!