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A Reluctant Druid cover art

A Reluctant Druid

By: Jon R. Osborne
Narrated by: Tristan Morris
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Summary

Centuries ago, the followers of the new gods defeated the old gods and the folk of legend, banishing them from the world of man. With their departure, magic faded from the land. 

The Milesian Accords had provisions for a new challenge, though, and the Exiled Gods have sent their minions back to our world to seek out a champion to fight for them and a druid able to wield the magic needed to fulfill the challenge. 

A descendant of the druid who participated in the original challenge, Liam Knox doesn’t know anything about the Accords or his ancestors, but those seeking to maintain the status quo are hunting him, and the beings of myth are doing their best to convince him to help the Exiled Gods return to the world of man, bringing magic back with them. 

Liam is faced with a choice he doesn’t want, and if he chooses wrong, he risks more than his own life - he could end the world as we know it. And he’s running out of time to decide.

©2017 Jon R. Osborne (P)2019 Podium Publishing

What listeners say about A Reluctant Druid

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  • Lu
  • 01-08-22

Good plot spoiled by gratuitous sex scenes

Narration generally good (although some of the accents made my eyes water).

The plot is well conceived & gripping, characters well formed & the prose smooth.

Sadly the authors penchant for numerous & detailed sex scenes really put me off! I'm not a prude, but neither did I sign up for reading one of those Mills & Boon-esque fantasy romance books. It all ends up feeling a bit tawdry...

1 person found this helpful

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Just get a new narrator!

While nothing original the story could while away an afternoon. However the actor (I use that in the loosest sense as he clearly can’t) does such a poor job it’s almost unlistenable. If you can’t do accents don’t try. Makes Dick Van Dyke’s cockney schtik sound Oscar worthy by comparison.

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Generally good.

I enjoyed the story but found the narration difficult. Accents were not great and could have been more comfortable in narrators' own voice.
The story had some interesting elements and seems very well researched. I disliked the volume of sex scenes, which I find off putting. Also, whilst not detracting from the story, I feel it may have been better set in Europe rather than having Celtic, Norwegian, and Middle Eastern mythology moving to US.

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Unbearable

I found the narration totally over whelmed the story. I lasted a couple of chapters before I surrender. Potentially a good story, but I'll never know.

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Great book

First book that I have read that combines old and new worlds
Well worth a listen

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Narration had me flummoxed

I just couldn't get past the bizarre narration. Between the sentences slammed together and unnatural intonation, it was impossible to continue. I won't even comment on the accent attempts. I don't understand how anyone could listen till the end.

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Good story

the story is good, though the Welsh God having a bad Scottish accent is annoying and frustrating. Scotland and Wales are different places.

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Not original, but definitely worth your time.

I enjoyed this audiobook and will be looking out for the next one in the series. Overtones of the Iron Druid (maybe just due to the subjects though), although the story itself has a pretty decent plot, and skips along nicely.
If you don't get bogged down with the accents (the purportedly Welsh character sounded more Middle Eastern), then the performance is a good one.

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mosyly harmed by the naration

This book was ruined by the narrator. Was he trying to sound Scandinavian or some other accent?
It made me quit listening.
From what I gathered, I was not very drawn to the characters

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Cringe

You could tell without looking at the author's name that this was written by a dude.

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  • Jaden
  • 23-08-22

I was sorta on board till the third erotic scene.

The story thus far was good and the writing was even better than a lot of books I've run into. I also appreciated that this wasn't really a progression story. Like sure, the two characters were new to the magic world and needed to train, but they were both more or less already acquainted with their crafts. The magic guy had already been doing magic for a while now and the woman was already very familiar with fighting. And both were in their 30s. So that was all cool but...

THE PROBLEM
I. Hate. Erotic. Fiction. That's it. That's the entire problem. Count me out. Hell to the no. I mean sure, to be fair a lot of its implied. But there's only so many times I can hear some variation of "her tits perked up in arousal" and "I rubbed myself on his erection" before I'm done. Most of the nitty gritty is implied, but the wind up in the beginning is described in way too much detail. Just go ''enjoy" yourself on your own time and leave me and all these poor books out of it. Good stories don't deserve this from you people.

31 people found this helpful

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  • kim
  • 30-08-22

Could have been good but I couldn't finish

the book started strong with a very interesting thought, but halfway through it devolved into recurrent pointless sex scenes and the male lead being the object of every female fantasy while the female lead can't decide who she desires more: her old flame or the guy with constant innuendo and creepy one liners.
If I wanted that, I would have gone for a romance.

It would have been alright if they advanced the plot, but they didn't. I gave up with 6 hours left. It was sad because the female lead started out as a kickass single mom before meeting the male lead...

10 people found this helpful

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  • Joshua Byron Lance
  • 13-11-19

Didn't know what to expect.

When i got this book it was slightly on a whim. It had just been added to Audible and thus had no reviews. I decided to give it a try because of the summery and I'm glad i did. The book starts off a bit confusing because of the multitude of characters but grows to be a great book full of personality, magic, intelligence and even a little lust. I can't wait to hear the next book. Or perhaps i will read it since it hasn't dropped on Audible at this time.

7 people found this helpful

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  • Randy Livengood
  • 26-07-22

Interesting book

I thought it was interesting on the story line but I feet it centered around too much sex. The different characters were good.

6 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Melissa Lasley
  • 09-12-22

All the sex takes away from the story

A fun premise, but all the sex takes away from a story that has promise. The writing devolves into sex as the central topic, or primary or secondary motivator for most of the characters. It gets tired quickly. I’ll not be listening to the rest of the series unfortunately.

4 people found this helpful

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  • Mjölnir
  • 05-04-22

One Tiny thing.

Erin Donnelly, main female character is a shitty person. Selfish thru an thru. Hope she dies in the story line.

3 people found this helpful

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  • Linda Chapman
  • 05-07-22

a fun read

laughed out loud frequently thoroughly enjoyed recommending!
great story told well the many captors and accents were such fun great imagery

2 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Anonymous User
  • 21-04-22

needs some more work as a writer but good

have a great story just to much character development not enough action alot of dialogue without substance

2 people found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Rojo
  • 05-04-23

Mixed feelings about this one, like one of the MC'

I liked the book to a certain point. Then it got stail. Great world building that includes some real world mythology into the stories events. Having previewed a little of the second book, other myths are included as well.

Things started getting bad when I noticed that the MC's just accepted that magic is real. One was a druid in name and had extensive knowledge of mostly Celtic mythology so him accepting magic wasn't that far of a stretch. The second had her boss say magic was really and that's all she needed to know, apparently. Even brought her son along for her "chosen one" journey; why not. Then instead of character development we got all the females the main male MC is attracted to trying to have sex with him. One of the females continues to try to have sex with him even after she's outed I was only trying to have sex with him so she can gain control of his power, and the other one wants to continuously have sex with him but keeps pushing him away from actually having a relationship, continuously crushing his heart on a daily basis.vIn between, sexy times, the characters are talking about the adventure to come with very little actually happening until the end, and a single encounter with the groups enemies. Speaking of the enemies, story changes perspective to some of their point of views. Usually, I like this kind of thing. Out of the seven that I can think of there is only one that was actually likable, but he only arrives in the story in the last quarter of the book, gets very little screen time, and I feel is going to be relegated to a sidekick position. All the other bad guys are either ignorant, stuck up, or perverted; Sometimes all three. By the time something of interest does actually happen, it happens quickly and at the very end of the book.

Triston Morris, starts of monotone but eases up. For a book with characters with Slavic and Irish accents, Morris was probably a poor choice.

1 person found this helpful

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    3 out of 5 stars
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  • Andrés Pérez Camarasa
  • 28-03-23

It has a few problems

I liked the story well enough, the world buildning is interesting and the stakes are hig but I have a few gripes that I cannot shake of.
First of, I understand why, but centering all mythos in the european-ahbramic religions and just plain ignoring the rest of the worlds religions is a bit too much occidental centric. Yes, to the main audience of this book they might now nothing about those religions, but at least acknowledge them.
Second, this book fails miserably the Bechdel Test. I don't mind the spicy thrown into the mix, but it feels weird in a center-fantasy-male-heterosexual way. I'm a cis hetero man myself but it just feels weird.

Not a bad read by any stretch, but I personally will not follow the story.

The narrator is ok, at first a tad monotone, and the "Irish accent" can be crude, but dones a nice job overall.

1 person found this helpful