Hammered

This third book in the Iron Druid Chronicles a - thrilling urban fantasy series featuring Atticus O'Sullivan, a smart-ass, bad-ass, 2,000-year-old Druid - finds our hero embarking on his boldest adventure yet. Atticus has just rescued his town from the designs of a coven of diabolical Nazi witches (a story told in Hexed, the second book in the series), though only with the intervention of a powerful Hindu sorceress. Her price: the golden apples of Asgard, which grant eternal youth.

Asgard is the home of the Norse pantheon ... including Thor, the god of thunder, who has made enemies all over the supernatural world. It seems that everyone wants Thor dead - including Atticus, who has made a promise to his best friend, an Icelandic vampire, to take him down - in exchange for guidance through the perilous supernatural kingdom. Atticus has slain demons, outsmarted Coyote, and killed an ancient Celtic god, but he's never faced a showdown like this. Will the mighty Thor prove to be Atticus' last stand ... or will he rain Ragnarok down on Asgard?

Hammered ISBN: 9780732292928

Hounded

Atticus O'Sullivan, last of the Druids, lives peacefully in Arizona running an occult bookshop and shapeshifting in his spare time to hunt with his Irish wolfhound. His neighbours and customers think this handsome, tattooed Irishman is about twenty-one years old when, actually, it's twenty-one centuries. Atticus draws his power from the earth, possesses a sharp wit and wields an even sharper magical sword known as Fragarach, the Answerer.

Unfortunately, a very angry Celtic god wants the sword, and he's been after Atticus for centuries. Now the determined deity has tracked him down and Atticus will need all his powers -- plus a seductive goddess of death, his vampire and werewolf team of lawyers, a sexy bartender possessed by a Hindu witch, and some good, old-fashioned Irish luck -- to kick some Celtic arse and deliver himself from evil.

Hounded ISBN: 9780732292904

Hexed

Atticus O'Sullivan, last of the Druids, doesn't care much for witches. Still, he's about to make nice with the local coven by Signing a mutually beneficial non-aggression treaty when suddenly the witch population in modern-day Tempe, Arizona, quadruples overnight. And the new girls are not just bad, they're badasses with a dark history on the German side of World War II.

With a fallen angel feasting on local high school students, a horde of Bacchants blowing in from Vegas with their special brand of deadly decadence, and a dangerously sexy Celtic goddess of fire vying for his attention, Atticus is having trouble scheduling the witch hunt. But aided by his magical sword, his neighbour's rocket-propelled grenade launcher, and his vampire attorney, Atticus is ready to sweep the town and show the witchy women they picked the wrong Druid to hex.

Hexed ISBN: 9780732292911

Kevin Hearne is a high school teacher with a passion for world religion and mythology. He is the author of Hounded and Hexed, the first two books in the series.

Iron Druid Chronicles
HarperVoyager
Author: Kevin Hearne
Price: $22.99

Interview with Kevin Hearne

Question: What inspired you to write the Iron Druid Chronicles?

Kevin Hearne: I mostly wanted to write a story about a man and his dog-all of the mythology and magic and everything else came later. It all started around the characters of Atticus and Oberon.


Question: Can you talk about creating the character of Atticus O'Sullivan?

Kevin Hearne: What interested me as a writer was figuring out how to humanize someone so incredibly old-and how would he keep himself grounded when it would be so easy to withdraw from the world and look on everyone as a transitory nuisance. The answer is relationships-even though they are necessarily transitory for him, there is no other way for him to hold on to his humanity.


Question: Do you think being a high school teacher and interacting with the readers daily helped create a series that will appeal to the young adult audience?

Kevin Hearne: I actually don't have much data about how appealing the series is to young adults; I didn't write it with them in mind. I was writing for the adult market. Teaching high school has certainly kept me abreast of the latest slang, however, and that's always amusing.


Question: What research into mythology did you do when writing the Iron Druid Chronicles?

Kevin Hearne: I went back to the original Irish mythology-the Fenian and Ulster cycles, the Annals of the Four Masters, and tried to root Atticus's past in those stories and the gods represented there.


Question: Finish this sentence: The best thing about books is…

Kevin Hearne: The best thing about books is that there's nothing to make you laugh or cry or think but the words on the page. It's just you and the author's words-no canned laughter, no musical score to tug at your heartstrings, no clever camera angles. It's the freedom to love and interpret a work for yourself.


Interview by Brooke Hunter