For those who aren’t familiar with the series, Graveyard Druid is the second installment in M.D. Massey’s Colin McCool Paranormal Suspense series. It’s main protagonist and story narrator is a twenty year old college who just happens to be a modern day descendent of Fionn MacCumhaill from Irish legend.
In this story, Colin is dragged into trouble again when ghouls start popping up in Austin, Texas. It isn’t long before they start attacking the living instead of digging up the newly dead and buried. The clues Colin <ahem> digs up lead him to the trail of a necromancer who is much more of a threat than he at first appears to be.
On top of this snowballing chaos, Colin’s love life becomes far more complicated, and he is not socially adept—at all.
The plotting and details were solid, if not complicated. There was only really one thread weaving through the story, maybe two if Colin’s budding romance with Belladonna Becerra is counted.
The world-building is more of the same, with numerous references to Irish myth and folklore, but there is little new in that regard. Most of the story’s new lore introduces how zombies and the undead fit into this universe.
Speaking of the undead, Massey’s descriptions are vivid and quite graphic. There’s more combat in this one, which the author pulls off quite well—I never got bored or tempted to skim past the battle scenes as happens all too often. However, the “gross out” factor is extremely strong in this book in several places.
As for the characters, the cast is mostly the same. We do have a new supernatural faction with attached characters in a local troll tribe that Colin befriends, as unlikely as that may sound at first, as well as the local werewolf pack. For the most part, though, familiar faces, both friendly and otherwise, prevail.
Though it offered few surprises, Graveyard Druid was an enjoyable reading experience. I will be interested to see what horr—um, what happens to Colin next.
Book Title: Graveyard Druid
Author: M. D. Massey
Copyright: 2017
Publisher: Modern Digital Printing
Edition: 1st Edition
Format: Kindle
Dreams of Blue Glass 