Jordan L. Hawk

The world that our two heroes, Whyborne & Griffin, live in is revealed to be filled with terrifying dark magic. Despite its many references to the world that Lovecraft created, this book is not at all derivative, but the horrors that haunt these pages are just as genuinely scary and unique. We have the "Guardians" who are the undead henchmen of the "Brotherhood" that Whyborne and Griffin often find themselves fighting. The "Brotherhood" has built their knowledge of the occult on stolen artifacts from the museum’s Egyptian exhibit, I guess it's not a stretch of the imagination to see that the Guardians resemble a bastardized version of many Egyptian gods. We learn that they have been pieced together from dead humans and animals, making them humanoid hybrids with animal traits. Unlike pictures we have seen in Egyptian art, they aren’t just creatures with human bodies and animal heads. Instead, we are treated to detailed descriptions of how human flesh and bone have been warped into these unnatural shapes, twisting the familiar into the unfamiliar and leaving these creatures residents of the "valley of the uncanny". Sometimes cosmic horror can get a bit too abstract to really be scary. but I have found that this author knows how to twist that horror into details that will literally make your skin crawl. In this story Whyborne has discovered a dangerous cult that is trying to resurrect the dead and take over the world, and it’s up to him and his handsome detective, Griffin, to stop them. Percival Endicott Whyborne is a reluctant hero in this, the first of what has grown into a lengthy series featuring these two guys. This first of, so far, 11 books in the Whyborne & Griffin series is a take on Lovecraft’s horror myths that centers on a love story between these two men. The gay romance subplot is really the force that drives this series. In this, the first in the series, watching Whyborne and Griffin fall in love can without a doubt be called the backbone. I've read most of the series and can wholeheartedly recommend it. The last book in the series...#11, came out in 2022. I hope that wasn't actually the last one… (more)

Rating: 4.9* of five

The Publisher Says: Someone is killing members of the old families…and the evidence points to Whyborne.

Widdershins has been unusually quiet for months. But now a mysterious creature from the Outside is on the loose, assassinating members of the town’s old families by draining their blood. Whyborne and Griffin set out to solve the mystery—but as the evidence piles up, the police begin to suspect Whyborne himself is the murderer.

Now Whyborne must both clear his name and stop the horrors the monster threatens to unleash. His only hope: an alliance with his old enemies the Endicotts.

Because something terrible lurks in the Draakenwood, and it will stop at nothing to seize control of the maelstrom itself.

Draakenwood is the ninth book in the Whyborne & Griffin series, where magic, mystery, and m/m romance collide with Victorian era America.

I purchased this book with my very own United States dollars...

... the same year that I realized I was losing out on DRCs because publishers realized I'd review books I bought for myself. Hence never having reviewed it before.

Oh myyy, as Takei would say. There's more than I expected in this ninth entry in the ongoing series. The ongoing plots never plod, but here they go from brisk trot to gallop both on the personal and overarching stakes fronts. Let me assure you that there is nothing series-drooping in this outing. I do most especially love the anachronistic way these men refer to their other halfs as "husbands"!

I was surprised and pleased that Whyborne's sister Persephone met her match. (Knock next time, you oaf!) I was also pleased that Whyborne Senior made such huge strides in his unwilling quest to become a decent human being. Streets to go, mind, but the growth curve is impressive. I like that redemption is still possible for even the worst of people in Author Hawk's world.

Speaking of worlds...Griffin continues to make Whyborne's miserable, first with that infernal rackety Oldsmobile, and this book with the ghastly newfangled telephone. Poor Whyborne, a fuddy-duddy at heart, is yoked by all-conquering love to a gadget-mad technophile. What's a man who is every inch a librarian in his soul to do?

Well, fight more evil, of course; the stakes are still there, the Endicotts have living relatives, Nyarlathotep isn't decisively defeated yet. Those hounds...!! And capable henches continue to abound. Christine, the ever-waspish, always faithful BFF, her husband Iskander (who is never that much limned, of course) and now Whyborne's librarian secretary Miss Parkhurst is in the family in every way. Really, isn't this the reason one reads series books? The stories are like our extended friend groups only easier to keep track of because they're in finished story arcs. Or about-to-be-finished story arcs...thinking of the Ketoi as truly underexplored arc-havers.

But here's the deal: The arcs all end. I wager that, if you start here (don't!), you'll feel the unnerved certainty that you've stumbled into a nest of nutjobs. Go back to #1, Widdershins, to get the place in the Cthuluverse and the dramatis personae straight. (So to speak.) I recommend them all, in order. Apart from my cavils over a certain inevitable monster-of-the-weekness and the double PoV in this story (out of keeping, not smoothly integrated), this story earns my smiling, loving approval.… (more)