Review: Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock

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Title:  Hemlock
Author:  Kathleen Peacock
Series:  1st book in the Hemlock trilogy
Publisher:  Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date:  May 8, 2012
Source:  Southern Book Bloggers ARC tour

Mackenzie and Amy were best friends. Until Amy was brutally murdered.

Since then, Mac’s life has been turned upside down. She is being haunted by Amy in her dreams, and an extremist group called the Trackers has come to Mac’s hometown of Hemlock to hunt down Amy’s killer: A white werewolf.

Lupine syndrome—also known as the werewolf virus—is on the rise across the country. Many of the infected try to hide their symptoms, but bloodlust is not easy to control.

Wanting desperately to put an end to her nightmares, Mac decides to investigate Amy’s murder herself. She discovers secrets lurking in the shadows of Hemlock, secrets about Amy’s boyfriend, Jason, her good pal Kyle, and especially her late best friend. Mac is thrown into a maelstrom of violence and betrayal that puts her life at risk.

Kathleen Peacock’s thrilling novel is the first in the Hemlock trilogy, a spellbinding urban fantasy series filled with provocative questions about prejudice, trust, lies, and love.

Hemlock isn’t your average werewolf story.  In this book, the existence of werewolves is common knowledge, though the creatures are still feared, as one might expect.  These werewolves are not mythical but exist because of the spread of Lupine Syndrome.  And once a person is discovered to have contracted LS, they are shipped off to internment camps and never heard from again.  The ones who aren’t caught either hide what they are, or they wreak havoc on the humans, further spreading the disease.

I wasn’t immediately grabbed by this book.  I found the first 100 pages or so very tedious, and if I hadn’t received this book for review through an ARC tour, I might have given up on it at that point.  I’m glad I didn’t, though.  It wasn’t the best werewolf-based novel I’ve read, but its unique storyline intrigued me, and once I got past all the angsty, hormonal stuff, the pacing picked up and I was able to enjoy the book.

Unfortunately, Hemlock does stumble into a lot of the plot pitfalls that so many YA novels seem destined for:  a love triangle, cringe-worthy dialogue (at one point, one of the bad guys calls a werewolf sympathizer a “twerp”), and  another case of the love interest running away from the heroine in order to protect her.  Toward the end of the book, when things have hit the proverbial fan, Mac thinks to herself, “It was official:  my life belonged on the CW,” and I couldn’t help thinking how apt her observation was.  Normally, I really dislike those kind of pop-culture references, but in this case, I really could see Hemlock being made into a series on that network.  And I’d watch it, too.

Speaking of the CW…anyone remember Veronica Mars?  I loved that show.  I still watch it in re-runs.  This book reminded me a lot of that show, with Mac super-sleuthing it up, trying to figure out who really murdered her best friend.  I mean, that’s exactly how the show started off:  murdered best friend, killer on the loose, cute girl trying to solve the mystery.  But that’s not the reason I bring it up.  If you remember Veronica Mars, you probably also remember that yummy on-again, off-again boyfriend of hers, one Logan Echolls.  I liked all of the characters in Hemlock well-enough, but I felt like I already knew Jason, the murdered best friend’s boyfriend.  It didn’t take long for me to realize that this character felt so familiar because I’d seen him before…in the form of Logan on VM.  Let’s do a little comparison for demonstration purposes:

Logan Echolls	Jason Sheffield
wealthy son of a famous actor	wealthy son of one of the most powerful man in Hemlock
attractive and cocky	attractive and cocky
murdered girlfriend	murdered girlfriend
hooks up with murdered gf’s best friend, after the fact	declares his feelings for best friend of murdered girlfriend, after the fact
wannabe bad boy	wannabe bad boy
drinks a lot	drinks a lot
always looking for a fight	always looking for a fight
played by Jason Dohring	named Jason

The resemblance is startling, no?  Not that I’m really complaining.  It just seemed so glaringly obvious where the author drew some of her inspiration from.  Just as obvious to me was who the killer was.  Almost as soon as the character was introduced, my hackles were raised.  I found the story to be rather predictable, but that fact didn’t keep it from being entertaining.

If you proceed with caution and don’t expect to be completely wowed by Hemlock, I think you’ll end up pleasantly surprised.  The story covered all the bases:  romance, humor, action, and mystery with a little violence and heartbreak thrown in for good measure.  There’s no cliffhanger, but the ending definitely left me curious enough to pick up the next installment.  Final verdict:  not half bad for this author’s debut.

Rating:  1/2

Book-A-Likes:  Slide by Jill Hathaway, the Nightshade series by Andrea Cremer