The Green Man’s Heir by Juliet E. McKenna (book review).
Thriftily, I picked up many of Juliet E. McKenna’s Green Man books while they were on special offer over the last few years and finally got to read one. This was partly prompted by my enjoyment of ‘The Roots Of Aston Quercus’, a short story featuring her hero in ‘Different Times And Other Places’, a collection from Newcon Press.
Her hero is Dan Mackmain, son of a human father and a dryad mother. Dryads are female tree spirits who sometimes enjoy a frolic with a mortal man, who finds them irresistible. They usually choose to have female children who are also dryads, but now and again, one will opt for a son. These fortunate fellows can see that dryads and other supernatural beings are tall, healthy, long-lived, and alluring to the opposite sex. Dan is a carpenter on building sites but also makes carvings from logs and sticks found in the wildwood. Like a journeyman of old, he roams all over Britain.
Currently, he is working in Derbyshire and lodging at a farmhouse. Stopping by a wildwood on the way home from work to locate timber suitable for his carvings, he encounters a policeman. The police have discovered the murder of a young girl. A gorgeous dryad, naked, voluptuous, and invisible to everyone else, distracts Dan while the police question him. He has a solid alibi; he was at work, so the police let him go. But he’ll be back. Dan is always curious about dryads and hopes to meet another like himself, a supernatural son, to be his buddy. He also hopes the dryad might have seen the killer. He can’t go to the police with such a source but could ring Crimestoppers anonymously. Dan is a decent fellow and wants to catch bad guys.
As the plot develops, Dan meets several different kinds of ethereal creatures in the woodland, some menacing. Although a female water spirit appears to be his ally, she likely has her own agenda and is untrustworthy. In folklore, generally, the creatures of the Otherworld are not kind. Oddly, the story rushes to a climax halfway through, but this is just the beginning of a growing crisis that will test our hero against even deadlier mythical creatures. The conclusion is fast, dramatic, and exciting.
The contemporary setting and likeable hero make ‘The Green Man’s Heir’ accessible, and the relaxed narrative style is pleasant. In places, it’s reminiscent of John Wyndham’s novels from the 1950s. The atmosphere is very English, even more so in the second half of the book. There’s a strong sense of locale, so I looked up the place names, and it turns out that Lambton and Kympton are both fictional villages in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. Cosy. It’s not too cosy, though. When Dan listens to a lady heiress complaining about the burdens of the estate, he thinks that having a job for life and a rent-free house isn’t too terrible. Dan’s need to earn a living keeps him grounded and realistic amongst all the fantasy trappings. Overall, I enjoyed the novel very much.
Eamonn Murphy
March 2025
(pub: ‎Wizards Tower Press, 2018. 368 page enlarged paperback. Price: £17.00 (UK). ISBN:‎ 978-1-90803-969-9.  eBook: £ 4.99 (UK)
check out website: https://wizardstowerpress.com/
