Willowgrove (Hemlock, #3)

by Kathleen Peacock

[Amber]

One of my favourite paranormal series has come to an end, and I’m thrilled to say that it ended well! I was a bit scared of reading Willowgrove after being forced to chug through some terrible series-enders (looking at you, Ruin & Rising) but Kathleen Peacock pulled everything off pretty well and it reached a nice conclusion.


The characters we love are back in Hemlock after experiencing much trauma at Thornhill. There have been a lot of changes since the gang left their home town, and everything feels the same but also a little bit off.

Mac remains awesome, and is keeping those Veronica Mars parallels going full throttle. I really liked her in this book, as I did in the previous two, although I thought that the focus could have been more on her character than on the plot. There wasn’t much of a balance when it came to character growth and that was a little disappointing. Mac is pretty much the same as she was in the first book, but I can forgive that because Hemlock!Mac is amazing.

As for Kyle… he doesn’t do much for me any more. I think I shipped him and Mac in the first book and for half of the second, but then something else came and swept me off my feet. Kyle is a bit of a Stefan, if I’m honest. DON’T KILL ME, TATUM! The other half of my ship, on the other hand, is a Logan Echolls and I love he-who-will-not-be-named lots. His character growth throughout the series has been EPIC, but I’m a little sad about the way his story wrapped up. Particularly in the romance area. Cough.

Continuing the trend that began with Thornhill, Willowgrove is a dark story, much darker than the series starter. There is one particular scene towards the end that shocked me, because I wasn’t expecting Peacock to go there. I burst into tears when it happened because I wasn’t ready for any of it. (For those of you who have read the book, I mean the arch scene.)

The ending was a giant thrill-ride. I had no idea where anything was going to go, and the scene was pretty chaotic so I spent the entire time worrying about my favourite characters. I loved this because it kept me on the edge of my seat.

I’m really happy with the way this trilogy has wrapped up, especially after reading the epilogue. While I would have preferred the romance to go a completely different way, I am still glad that certain characters are happy. It’s very hard to review the final book in a series because I desperately don’t want to spoil anybody, so I’m going to leave my review here.