Review--Scourged by Kevin Hearne

 

Kevin Hearne creates the ultimate Atticus O’Sullivan adventure in the grand finale of the New York Times bestselling Iron Druid Chronicles: an epic battle royale against the Norse gods of Asgard.

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.

I have finally finished Kevin Hearne's The Iron Druid Chronicles, an epic urban fantasy series that was one wild ride from start to finish. Scourged is the final book and even though I skipped a few novellas over the years, I felt like I got a good sense of what happened in between books, and I even have one novella I still need to read since it's in hardback format, but I don't think it will detract from the story by reading it in reverse! Lol. I will say the ending of the series did leave me a little sad in some sense. Like most series when they end, you never really want them to go, but at the same time you know it's for the best.

This is it. The final showdown. The battle that we know has been brewing between Atticus and Loki and Hel is about to begin, but yet things are still pretty chaotic in the world and our last three Druids on earth are once again separated. But it would seem this is more by design than anything else. While Atticus is gearing up for the big battle to come and allying with some powerful deities to take down Loki, Granuaile and Owen are elsewhere fighting their own fights.

Granuaile is working with Sun Wukong and Erlang Shen to defeat other powerful deities known as the Yama Kings. The Yama Kings are bent on destruction and naturally, Granuaile is trying to stop them and keep the world a little bit safer. Along the way, she continues her Druid training in creating new headspaces and learning Polish this time around. I feel like Granuaile has come quite far in this series and even in these last three books that I've read since I read the first half of the series years ago! Lol.

Owen, being fresh to the series and literally popping to life just when I came back to it, is another delightful character. He comes off as a cranky old grump, being that is pretty old even if he was in a magical sleep the last century or so. He continues to learn more about the modern world and modern vernacular, which in itself is pretty funny. He's still welcome among the wolves and that's where he remains as he's about to train a set of children how to become Druids, so soon, they won't be a dying breed anymore. 

But with Ragnarok on the rise, Owen finds himself set with a new task and that's trying to get Fand to work with the powerful Brighid to be on Team Atticus in the battle against Loki.We're basically watching chaos ensue all over the world where our Druids are at all before Ragnarok takes place!

I was once again a bit sad that the Druids were separated again and the meaning behind this becomes a bit clear and I can't help but wonder if I missed signs of this in the early books I read years ago. Granted, Owen wasn't around in those, so maybe the signs weren't as clear. It's tough to say since I waited so long to finish this series. But I guess it just upset me and I do see the reasoning for it. I missed the romance that was brewing between Granuaile and Atticus. I feel like in these last three books especially it was lacking. But I know it was never a central focus point of the story, there just might have been moments here and there and I feel like those have been missing in this last set.

The ending was truly one I never saw coming! I mean, yes the Ragnarok part was expected but all the end results from that battle were truly a mess of surprises and shocks! It was just...wow, shocking! Lol. I don't want to get into spoilers even though I am sooo late to the game of finishing this fantastic series. It's hard to break old habits that's for sure! Needless to say this may not have been the ending I expected but it was definitely a fitting one for the series. At some point I intend to read Kevin's newer trilogy that takes place in the same world, but I have yet to look at the book to see the "who" is we're dealing with this time around, so I will be curious to see where Kevin takes the expansion of this world!

Scourged was definitely a "triumphant" conclusion to The Iron Druid Chronicles! It was filled with action and a good amount of humor via Oberon and a new character that glommed onto Owen who I just loved! The animals in this world truly are the best and are absolutely hilarious! They brought much needed levity to some of the more dire moments throughout its course! Scourged may have closed the book on Atticus' tale but I suspect the next trilogy will be just as entertaining and magical! This is a true gem in the urban fantasy genre!

Overall Rating 4/5 stars