Trapped, by Kevin Hearne

After twelve years of secret training, Atticus O’Sullivan is finally ready to bind his apprentice, Granuaile, to the earth and double the number of Druids in the world. But on the eve of the ritual, the world that thought he was dead abruptly discovers that he’s still alive, and they would much rather he return to the grave.

Having no other choice, Atticus, his trusted Irish wolfhound, Oberon, and Granuaile travel to the base of Mount Olympus, where the Roman god Bacchus is anxious to take his sworn revenge—but he’ll have to get in line behind an ancient vampire, a band of dark elves, and an old god of mischief, who all seem to have KILL THE DRUID at the top of their to-do lists.

Granuaile comes into her own

I really enjoyed Trapped! To start with, Granuaile really comes into her own, and gets plenty of chances to be a badass. She’s also wiser than Atticus in some respects, and it shows. Atticus has grown; he’s (finally) taking responsibility for his past mistakes, and dealing with his feelings instead of running from them. Tthough he makes a few new mistakes, I think he’s starting to learn to pay attention to Granuaile’s input. And there’s plenty of Oberon being Oberon; his vocabulary keeps expanding, as does his knowledge of pop culture. He’s adorable and funny and deadly when necessary, and keeps things from getting too heavy. Also, two aspects of the story, both involving Granuaile, made me extremely happy, but I can’t say what they are because spoilers. (If you’ve read it, you know. If you haven’t, what are you waiting for?)

The book is a little episodic, with several plot lines running either concurrently or sequentially, and the inclusion of one short and one long tale recounted by other characters. Both are important to the plot, and one is written (rather well) in the style of Norse Skaldic poetry, which was fun to listen to. Despite the episodic flavor as they shift from storyline to storyline and realm to realm, the book flows along pretty well. And if you like the variety of cultures and creatures in previous Iron Druid books, you’ll find a fair few of them here, from vampires and various nonhuman creatures to gods of at least three pantheons.

All in all, Hearne has regained most of my trust and enthusiasm, which faltered badly with Hammered. Trapped feels like a deeper, richer, more mature Iron Druid novel, with the continuing character development we began to see in Tricked, but which was really missing in the first three books (as fun as they were.) I can’t wait to see what happens in Hunted, book #6 in the series.

Audiobook review: As always, Luke Daniels does a great job with most of the voices, and doesn’t overdo the accents. I appreciate that he doesn’t pitch his voice too high for Granuaile and most other female voices, as some male readers do. However, I’m still not sold on his new (as of Tricked) voice for Oberon, which continues to sound a bit too nasal, childish, and occasionally whiny. (Well, all right, I’ll grant that dogs do whine.) He also slides into a Southern accent here and there, which really doesn’t match the Oberon of the first three books. Still, the rest of Daniels’s performance more than makes up for it.

Reading this book contributed to these challenges:

• Audiobook Challenge 2023
• COYER Upside-Down 2023: Chapter 2
• Iron Druid Read-Along 2023
• The Backlist Reader Challenge 2023

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