The Green Man's Debt

Green Man #9

by Juliet E. McKenna

Dan Mackmain's mum is a dryad, so he knows asking someone from the supernatural world for a favour means there'll be a price to pay, sooner or later. He's been waiting for the Hunter, the antler-crowned guardian of predators and prey, to call in his debt.

He wasn't expecting this to happen when he and his girlfriend Fin were planning to visit her sister Iris and her new husband Conn. Dan has prepared for this unknown challenge, reading up on Irish folklore. So far, he's learned how different those who live in that unseen realm will be from anyone he's encountered before - and that crossing them could be very dangerous.

A modern fantasy rooted in ancient myths and folklore.

Genres: Urban Fantasy, Fantasy

335 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 10, 2026

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]

I am a big fan of this rural fantasy series based in the mythology of the British Isles. This one takes dryad's son Dan and swan maiden Fin to Ireland, which is very firmly established as not their territory, to confront wolf shifters (which were an Irish thing, they mythology here is terrific).

I do like how this series very much show the difference between 'antagonist' and 'bad guy'; the antagonists are very much also the allies here. The actual villain is terrific, and there is a particular joy in the shape of an American romantasy novelist doing the Irish heritage thing, who comes with an array of books titled 'A Noun of Noun and Noun’.

[Pers]

Absolutely excellent as the Green Man books always are.

What I always love about Dan's adventures is that the real power lies with the women. Yes, there's Dan's brother-in-law Conn, with his money and his connections, and yes, there's Máirtín, the older and powerful Irish werewolf, but the person with the most power is Eimer, who is the Irish equivalent of Hazel, the wise woman whom Dan's encountered more than once, who also happens to be able to change herself into a hare. Eimer has considerable healing powers and her own brand of magic to counter the supernatural forces whom she and Dan encounter during the course of the events in The Green Man's Debt.

I also love the fact that Dan's network of friends, family, and contacts is ever expanding - he started out believing he had to do everything on his own - not because he thought of himself as a hero (he'd probably scoff at that idea!), but because he was the man on the spot who *could* deal with whatever supernatural situations arose, but he soon learned in The Green Man's Heir that this was no longer the case and his network has continued to expand from book to book. And the best part, of course, is that nearly all of the people whom he encounters who can help him deal with the supernatural are women, so there's nothing of toxic masculinity about Dan, there's no 'I am the Chosen One and I must do this alone, even if it kills me': he accepts the help he knows he needs from the people who are able to help regardless of their gender. The fact that Dan's a literal strong man is irrelevant except in those cases where the story calls for someone who's physically strong. This is always refreshing.

[BrokenMnemonic]

I re-read this series a few months ago, and with that still fairly fresh in my mind my main feeling is that this isn't an anchor novel in the series, but rather more of a part of the buildup to something more significant. One of the things I like about this series is that it's been touring the various countries within the UK and various regions of England, and I very much like how the scene-setting and Dan's perceptions of each evoke the feeling of each that I'm familiar with to me clearly. Although in this case, that was rather more the feeling of navigating to a ferry port, and all the stages that go with leaving the UK to journey into one of the EU countries, down to the feeling of ferry engines starting, how the noises sound on the car deck, and how the water looks.

The mystery within the story doesn't feel particularly significant in itself; what does feel like it matters is the way Dan makes contact with those with those who have living connections to folklore, the way the way he goes through the uncomfortable experience of being seen as a trespasser or an intruder for entirely legitimate reasons on the part of those in Ireland, and the way he tries to do the job he thinks he's there to do while being exposed to something threatening and outside his experience.

One of my favourite things about the worldbuilding in these novels is that the levels of friendship or acquaintance Dan has with those he's met through the series varies so widely. It'd be easy to have him work with a group like the Cunning Men, solve a mystery, and then have one of them be the brand new friend who'll always help him out if he calls, but his relationships aren't that simple. Other people have their secrets, and concerns, and boundaries, and Dan accepts those even when they make him uncomfortable. Equally, he makes compromises and bargains when he needs help because a thing needs doing, and then he pays the price for it, in part because he knows his limitations.

[Jacey]

Due for publication 10th September 2026. I had an advance copy from the publisher and was delighted to have the opportunity to review it because I love this series. Daniel Mackmain is the son of a dryad and a mortal, so he doesn't exactly have powers, but he has skills. He can see dryads and other supernaturals, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad. He's physically robust and he heals quickly - which is a good job because he's always getting into trouble, usually prompted by the Green Man, who often sends him into situations to troubleshoot. He's very intertwined with the folkloric/supernatural world, and his girlfriend, Fin, is a swan shapechanger.

In this book, Dan takes a couple of weeks leave from his job and heads off to Ireland with a task given to him by the Hunter - to whom he owes a debt. Finding out what the task is is usually the first problem. Fin's sister and her new husband are infanticipatng, so there's a family aspect to this, too, but Dan is drawn into an adventure with Irish wolf-changers and a pair of American interlopers. He's trying to help without overstepping the mark, conscious of his English roots. His dryad friends won't trespass on Irish soil, so his usual 'dryad network' isn't available to him. He's very much on his own and a bit out of his depth, but he has a couple of locals to work with. Excellent characters, plenty of tension and a mystery to solve.

This is a fabulous series. Each book is complete, but you'll probably get a lot more enjoyment if you read some or all of the previous ones, starting with The Green Man's Heir. Highly recommended.

[KateKing58]

As ever, the writing is richly detailed. If you know the places involved you are instantly there. If you don't, you could use this as a guidebook (up to the point where imagination takes over).

But I don't get the plot of this one.

An American shape-shifter forges an alliance with a shadowy entity from the Irish mountains to defraud and murder a romantasy author who is coming to Ireland for business and personal reasons. The shadow entity is largely irrelevant, a hint of menace in a couple of scenes. The shape-shifter's motivation is obscure. Just the money? A wish to prevent even a fictional account of shape-shifters reaching a wider audience? That ship sailed years ago!

And why is The Hunter concerned enough to send Dan? The locals have knowledge and power enough to deal with this outsider. Dan brings a hagstone, an ability to talk to young men with chips on their shoulders, and an annoying tendency to think that he needs to do everything, know everything, solve every problem. At least he gets schooled on that last point.

I had hoped to learn more about Irish folklore, but clearly I'm going to have to do my own reading about that.

[Ursula Mayr]

So so

I was a bit disappointed by this story. A bit slow and our hero does not really get to do much.

[Larisa]

Ninth installment is as good or better than previous adventures. Love that characters all grow and evolve, the villains are each unique in their dastardly deeds and natures.