Junkyard Druid by M.D. Massey

Junkyard Druid by M. D. Massey
Published by Independently Published
Age Group: Adult
Format: Fiction
Genres and Categories: Fae/Fey, Urban Fantasy, Various Magic
Series: The Colin McCool series #1
My Rating:
Published on: 22nd September 2016
Pages: 300
Buy this Book! Amazon UK / Amazon US / Barnes & Noble / Blackwells / Bookshop.org US / Waterstones
Add to Goodreads

JUNKYARD DRUID A New Adult Urban Fantasy Novel From M.D. Massey

A cursed druid, blackmailed by a faery queen to find a missing magic rock. Let's just hope they don't hack the druid off... for everyone's sake.

Name's Colin McCool. Folks call me the Junkyard Druid. I hate that name.

Despite my last name, I'm not "cool" like the other hunters in town. I don't run an occult bookstore, I've never owned a Harley, and I didn't inherit a family fortune passed down through generations of hunters before me.

And I kind of have this curse on me that's messed up my life.

So, things have gone to hell since I was cursed. I live in a junkyard, my mentor Finn is a heroin addict, I've got the Cold Iron Circle breathing down my neck, and the local Fae Queen Maeve is blackmailing me into doing her dirty work.

Now I'm in way over my head trying to retrieve Maeve's stolen magic rock, all while helping my friend Belladonna solve a series of murders that may or may not involve the local werewolves.

And did I mention that my girlfriend is a ghost?

If I can just get the Faery Queen's tathlum back, and help Belladonna solve the murders...

Then I just might live long enough to finish my first year of college.

- - -

Junkyard Druid is a new adult fantasy novel that interweaves elements of paranormal mystery and suspense to introduce an exciting new world and characters in the urban fantasy paranormal genre. It is the first book in the Colin McCool urban fantasy series for adults. Readers of Jim Butcher, Patricia Briggs, Kevin Hearne, and Al K. Line will enjoy exploring this new fantasy world through the eyes of Colin McCool. Get your copy today!

Content Warnings:

Please note
As an Amazon Associate and member of other affiliate programmes I earn a small commission from items purchased using links featured in this post at no extra cost to you. Click here to learn more. Every purchase you make through Just Geeking By helps keep this blog running.

This series came highly recommended to me but it took me a while to pick up the first book because I was highly sceptical of how similar it sounded to Kevin Hearne’s Iron Druid Chronicles. I was right to be. Junkyard Druid is one of those books where you play spot the details ripped off from other urban fantasy series – and yes that is plural. I’ve seen other reviewers name Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files specifically, however, I noted along with the Iron Druid Chronicles that there were specific details ripped from Laurell K. Hamilton’s Anita Blake series and Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series regarding lycanthropes.

Specifically how an Alpha can control another’s beast and the pack bonds. I’ve read a lot of urban fantasy in my time and while there is always a magical link between pack members I’ve only ever seen it called pack bonds and described in that way in the Mercy Thompson series. Every single one of these series began at least 5 years before Junkyard Druid was published, so it’s clear where M.D. Massey got his “ideas” from.

Even if I could overlook these issues with Junkyard Druid (which I personally can’t; lack of originality and blatantly stealing is a real turn-off for me), I had problems with the book in general. Let’s start with the fact that there’s a badass female hunter, Belladonna, who apparently can kick ass yet only hits one thing once and then, for the second time, has to turn to the protagonist, Colin, to save her. The same badass female who we’re told is extremely liberated and is actually at one point told she’s wearing clothes that would make a professional whore envious (and is not insulted by this), gets huffy over a biker gang of lycanthropes having some nudie calendars of women up. I’m sorry, what? It’s a biker gang. Of lycanthropes. Of course, they have naked pictures of women up on the wall.

You see, there are no female lycanthropes to complain because the pack doesn’t change women because “it’s too violent for them”. Yes, you read that correctly. Women who go through childbirth, one of the most painful experiences a person can go through, are deemed not able to handle the violence of a lycanthrope change by this author. It could just be bad wording, and what the author really means is that women rarely survive the transformation. In that case, this seems eerily similar to yet another urban fantasy series, namely Kelley Armstrong’s Women of the Otherworld series where Elena Michaels is the only known female werewolf to have survived the change.

The only other main female character in Junkyard Druid other than Belladonna is the femme fatale who flips her hair, drives her motorcycle and flirts constantly with the protagonist but never actually does any of the badass hunting she’s supposed to be so good at, is Sabine, a fae, Colin met at his therapist’s office. I’m all for therapy and mental health featured in fiction, what I really hate is when it’s just used as a plot tool and that’s exactly what happens in this book. We are told multiple times that she has cuts and scars on her arms, and we’re also constantly reminded that she uses a powerful glamour spell to hide and make herself look ugly. It’s so powerful that Colin has to use an earpiece so he doesn’t look like he’s talking to himself.

But do we ever get Sabine’s story? Not really. We’re told what she is, as in what type of fae she is and what that means regarding her physical appearance (naturally why her boobs are a certain size and stuff like that), and how it’s led to her being teased about her appearance by the fae. But that is it. Why she cuts, and anything else is never ever discussed. She’s just there to be the damsel in distress.

** [NB: I’ve been informed by someone who’s read seven books of this series that Belladonna’s actions in the book are deliberate and part of a larger plot that plays out in future books. They also mentioned that the first book is exceptionally weak compared to the rest of the series. Personally, I have too many other books to read to check this out, but I thought it worth mentioning for anyone else who might be curious.]

The only thing I did find interesting in Junkyard Druid was some of the NPCs, and they suggested a much larger world that perhaps could be entertaining. But it was also not without its failures either; the author had evidently tried to reach for the heady heights of the witticisms and sarcasm that Jim Bitcher and Kevin Hearne excel at, and failed miserably.

Junkyard Druid is promoted with the tagline “If you enjoy urban fantasy novels that feature snarky male protagonists then you’ll love this paranormal thrill ride with a twist of mystery and suspense” and maybe if you’re just interested in a light easy read. If you’re not a picky reader then you’ll be able to sit back and enjoy this one. Personally, there were just too many issues, too many things that I just kept coming back to and thinking ‘Ugh, no I don’t like that…’.