Audiobook Review – Scourged (Iron Druid Chronicles, Book 9) by Kevin Hearne, Narrated by Luke Daniels (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 8 hours and 57 minutes (288 pages)
Publisher: Random House Audio
Release Date: April 3, 2018
ASIN: B075GYWQ52
Stand Alone or Series: 9th book in the Iron Druid Chronicles
Source: Audiobook from Audible.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

“Unchained from fate, the Norse gods Loki and Hel are ready to unleash Ragnarok, a.k.a. the Apocalypse, upon the earth. They’ve made allies on the darker side of many pantheons, and there’s a globe-spanning battle brewing that ancient Druid Atticus O’Sullivan will be hard-pressed to survive, much less win.

Granuaile MacTiernan must join immortals Sun Wukong and Erlang Shen in a fight against the Yama Kings in Taiwan, but she discovers that the stakes are much higher than she thought.

Meanwhile, Archdruid Owen Kennedy must put out both literal and metaphorical fires from Bavaria to Peru to keep the world safe for his apprentices and the future of Druidry.

And Atticus recruits the aid of a tyromancer, an Indian witch, and a trickster god in hopes that they’ll give him just enough leverage to both save Gaia and see another sunrise. There is a hound named Oberon who deserves a snack, after all.”

This was a somewhat disappointing end to the Iron Druid Chronicles. This is the ninth, and final, book in a series that should have ended a couple books ago.

I listened to this on audiobook (I have listened to most of this series on audiobook). It is generally well done; however the voices for Atticus and Granuaile are too much the same…so it’s hard to remember who is talking sometimes. Some of the other voices are over-characterized; for example Owen and Starbuck actually made me cringe a bit when they were talking.

The story jumps between Atticus, Granuaile, and Owen; each of them have a part to play in the final battle against Loki and Hel.

This book just seemed very piecemeal…like it was just going through the actions needed to tie up the story. It was a very dis-satisfying ending. I feel like this series started going downhill a bit with Book 6 and just kept decreasing in quality from there.

Overall, I guess read this if you want to tie-up the series but don’t expect much from it. I am happy the series is over, but wish it would have ended a few books ago when it was still well-written and I still enjoyed it.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– New Release Reading Challenge
– Goodreads Reading Challenge