The Green Man's Holiday

Green Man #8

by Juliet E. McKenna

When your mother’s a dryad and you’re an only child, you don’t have much experience of big family events. But Daniel Mackmain’s girlfriend, Finele, has a whole load of relatives. They’re all coming to her sister Iris’s wedding. Frankly, Dan’s dreading it. At least plenty of other guests will have connections to the supernatural. The bride and groom can turn into swans, for a start.

Since Dan’s still a loner at heart, he and Fin have planned a few days away together afterwards. Just the two of them in a quiet country cottage should be nice and relaxing. Dan should have remembered what folk wisdom says about making plans.

A modern fantasy rooted in the ancient myths and folklore of the British Isles.

Genres: Fantasy

298 pages, Paperback

Published October 30, 2025

About the author

Juliet E McKenna is a British fantasy author living in the Cotswolds, UK. Loving history, myth and other worlds since she first learned to read, she has written fifteen epic fantasy novels so far. Her debut, The Thief’s Gamble, began The Tales of Einarinn in 1999, followed by The Aldabreshin Compass sequence, The Chronicles of the Lescari Revolution, and The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy. The Green Man’s Heir was her first modern fantasy inspired by British folklore in 2018. The Green Man’s Quarry in 2023 was the sixth title in this ongoing series and won the BSFA Award for Best Novel. The seventh book, in 2024, is The Green Man’s War.

Her 2023 novel The Cleaving is a female-centred retelling of the story of King Arthur, while her shorter fiction includes forays into dark fantasy, steampunk and science fiction. She promotes SF&Fantasy by reviewing, by blogging on book trade issues, attending conventions and teaching creative writing. She has served as a judge for the James White Award, the Aeon Award, the Arthur C Clarke Award and the World Fantasy Awards. In 2015 she received the British Fantasy Society’s Karl Edward Wagner Award. As J M Alvey, she has written historical murder mysteries set in ancient Greece.

Who’s to say what will come next?

Learn more about all of this at julietemckenna.com and on Twitter @JulietEMcKenna

Reviews

[K.J. Charles]

This is such a good series - using British folklore to underpin very modern fantasy. This one takes a new tack by putting Dan (dryad's son) and Fin (swan maiden, for a given value of maiden) into a closed environment and timescale. (They find themselves stuck in a tiny village, cut off from communications, with a near-newborn baby who's been swapped for a changeling, and who must be kept alive long enough to sort it all out. This is not within Dan's comfort zone.)

It works really well. The tension is strong after a very domestic start, the stakes are seriously high, the antagonist properly menacing, the folklore cleverly deployed. And yet another fantastic cover: these look so good. Great stuff.

[Jacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dan Mackmain has Greenwood-blood, due to being the son of a dryad and a mortal man. His girlfriend, Fin is swan maiden, and in the previous seven books, they’ve developed a network of friends of the magical persuasion (a sylph, cunning men, wise women stc.) who have helped with the various magical problems the Green Man has sent Dan to solve. In this book, Dan and Fin decide enough is enough and they decide to take a West Country holiday, renting a nice little cottage for a week. Unfortunately within an hour of arriving they find a newborn baby girl abandoned on their doorstep. Doing the right thing, Dan calls the police and the child is quickly reunited with her parents, who live in the same village. All good then? No, of course not. Dan realises the baby is a change child, probably a tiny baby hag. When Dan and Fin set off to find the real stolen child things get complicated. They find the child, but Fin is trapped in a kind of netherworld, leaving Dan with the problem of exchanging the real human child for the changeling… and then the problem of dealing with the changeling baby. But the real problem is the hag who engineered the whole problem in the first place. She’s banjaxed Dan and Fin’s phones and their car won’t start, so they aren’t able to ask their friends for help. So Dan ends up with the problems of feeding and changing the baby while trying to rescue Fin and then… but that would be telling. Suffice it to say that Dan and Fin don’t get much of a holiday. I recommend you read the book. Excellent tale from the pen of Ms McKenna.

[Bel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another solid instalment and a wonderful shout out for LGBTQ+ rights in the acknowledgements 🥰

[S.J. Higbee · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series could be categorised as urban fantasy – except it isn’t set within a town. Dan’s mother is a dryad so he was born and brought up in the heart of the English countryside and wouldn’t thrive anywhere that could be described as urban. It’s also contemporary and McKenna has kept the stories sufficiently up to date that Dan complains about the cost of living crisis. This one starts with a wedding. His girlfriend, Fin, is a swan maiden and it’s one of her sisters who is getting married. I liked the tension around the fact that Fin’s parents are separated, at least partly due to her father initially not knowing he was marrying a shapeshifter and having to keep him from discovering that all the groom’s family also are shapeshifters. Dan is awkward when socialising with large numbers of people he doesn’t know and endures rather than enjoys the wedding.

But after the wedding is over, he and Fin are looking forward to having a few days away in a cottage they’ve hired off the beaten track in an area known for good walking trails. Only to be confronted with a situation involving a changeling baby. It’s a recurring legend within European folklore and there are various versions of a human baby being swapped for a changeling infant throughout Britain. I loved how McKenna uses this situation to put Dan and Fin at risk. Understandably, when they report that a baby has been left on their doorstep, the police are very interested in how it got there.

McKenna deals with the demands of a tiny infant really well. Dan and Fin find themselves in a never-ending chain of feeding, winding, changing and putting the baby down to sleep – no cute sentimentality here. And when the creature on the cover of the book makes an appearance – that’s a real shock to Dan. They are both outside their own territory and aren’t sure of how local conditions prevail. They are also cut off from being able to use their phones or computers, which isolates them from getting help.

There’s a real sense of Dan and Fin having to deal with most of this adventure using their own wits to survive two scary monsters. As for me, I stayed up far later than I should to discover what happens next. The story has several dramatic twists that build on former adventures – to get the best of this series, I strongly recommend that you read it in order.

If you enjoy your fantasy peopled with creatures set within the culture and folklore of Britain – this series comes very highly recommended. And this particular tale has made my Outstanding Reads list for the year.
10/10

[Ben Jeapes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Green Man series has developed its world steadily and logically. Half-dryad Dan and swan maiden Fin rarely have an adventure without knock-on consequences and there is no reset button, so they have accumulated friends and allies to the point where the last book, The Green Man's War, could have found itself overwhelmed in the hands of a lesser author. A kind of Folk Heroes Assemble.

So for both readers and characters, this is a step back. After a (slightly slower than usual) start, a family wedding - another sign of how the series has grown, because the author has given it a population of characters each with their own stories, and that includes weddings - Dan and Fin are almost on their own. They are meant to be on holiday but soon find themselves cut off from all their friends, with only their wits and a bare smattering of their powers to get them through. Dan has made one too many enemies in his time and on this occasion the foe's sole motivation is to get revenge. Not necessarily to kill him, but certainly to bugger up his life to the nth degree, and should that lead indirectly to his death then the foe certainly won't complain. And as has happened before, a parallel problem is the harsh reality of having to live in a world of law and order with a police force who know nothing of the uncanny but can recognise dodgy behaviour when they see it.

We also come the closest the series has ever been to outright comedy as Dan wrestles with a situation that approximately half the population will recognise but which is forever new when it occurs. But it isn't comedy: McKenna doesn't quite play it for laughs (though the temptation must have been strong); Dan certainly can't see the funny side; it is still only one step away from utter calamity with the possibility of going so horribly wrong; and it clashes with the reader's own human instincts like nails scraped down a blackboard. Masterfully done.

[Michael Cheater · Rating 5 out of 5]

For those who are veterans of this series, you need only know one thing: that this new offering is every bit as good as the preceding volumes. For those who are neophytes to the series, my advice is to start at the very beginning with The Green Man’s Heir.

This time our part dryad hero, Daniel Mackmain is taking a bit of time off in Somerset with his partner Fin when they find a baby has been abandoned on the porch of their holiday home. They need to solve the problem of the mystery baby while being hindered by the creepy old neighbour, a mysterious beast stalking the Neolithic monuments that dot the countryside, and the malign force which attempts to keep them in the village and prevents them from contacting their allies.

I devoured the book in a couple of evenings, and I’m now eagerly awaiting volume nine.

[Martin Owton · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series continues to delight. The Green Man's Holiday seems something of a throwback to the early books of the series before Dan acquired the network of wise women, cunning men and various nature spirits that have featured in the most recent books. Dan and Fin take a break in a holiday cottage in the Mendips in deepest Somerset, and I think it no spoiler to say that things do not go plan. They are cast very much on their own resources as a magical influence is interfering with the function of their phones and car. This is all to the good, reminding the reader of the strength of character of Dan and Fin, as they strive to overcome the peril with little or no assistance.

The Green Man's Holiday is an excellent addition to the series and will not disappoint

[Carro · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've been really enjoying this series and this is well up to standard. Interesting plot that arises from the location, from past actions of the main characters and from people from folklore. Excellent descriptions of locations, not just visual but all the senses that give you a feeling of having visited there yourself.
I particularly liked some of the folklore characters being fleshed out a bit more.
Needless to say, not a restful holiday at all.

[S. Naomi Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This series just keeps getting better.

In this one, Dan and Fin decided to take a holiday after a family funeral, except as with anything Dan Mackmain gets involved in, things don't quite go as planned. Cue shenanigans with a hag, a baby, and a critter from another realm, and you've got what is possibly the darkest of the Green Man series to date.

If you haven't sampled these books yet, I highly recommend them.

[r coates · Rating 5 out of 5]

unputdownable as always

Thank you so much for these stories, they are one of those treasures in what would otherwise be a tough year. I am very grateful.
I suppose as far as reviews go it’s a bit lacking, but I can and regularly do recommend this series.
I just wish I could have a new story every month, every week would be greedy. One of the few series I have read more than once, apart from the Gruffalo, but that’s on my kids.

[Ursula Mayr · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my favorite

I would give this story 31/2 stars if possible. I automatically deduct a star if children are part of the plot. I read fantasy for entertainment and that is a hard no for me. Apart from that, It was a bit slow at times. I did enjoy catching up with the cast and will buy the next one.

[Jenni · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another fantastic entry in the series. Loved seeing the new situations and folklore, as well as all the character moments.

[Pers · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit of a slow start, but once it got going it flew!

[Susanne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not as good as previous books in the series. The passage about scrounging some barbed wire is time I'll never get back.

[Anne Barwell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another excellent story in this series. Looking forward to more.

[Runalong · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great tale where the title is going to wrong foot you how Dan’s simple holiday is about to go very very wrong. Incredibly tense and stakes are very very high - a thrilling read

Full review - https://www.runalongtheshelves.net/bl...