Review of Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock

Title/Author: Hemlock (Hemlock #1) by Kathleen Peacock
Publisher/Date published: Katherine Tegen Books, May 8th 2012
How I got this book: received it from the publisher as an egalley

Goodreads summary: "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."

YES! THE WEREWOLVES AND I! WE HAVE CONNECTED! HURRAY!

Ok, so let me set the scene: it's past midnight and I'm a little bleary-eyed, having just finished Hemlock and I'm not even the least bit sleepy because it was awesome and thrilling and I just want to get all of it out while I'm still feeling the rush!

Seriously, I was thinking werewolves and I didn't mesh well. But Hemlock has changed all of this. It wasn't the werewolves on themselves, it was just the novels that weren't working for me, because as you can tell from my exlamation above, this one obviously did work for me. Rather well actually. And you know what I think caused this? Kathleen Peacock didn't take the GRRR out of the werewolves and it is SUCH a pet peeve of mine when this happens to paranormal beings! I mean, if werewolves were just slightly overgrown dogs, more like pets actually, they wouldn't be werewolves right? The essential part is that they SHOULD be dangerous. Because they have big claws and teeth and huh, who was that that tried to kill Little Red Riding Hood and her grandmother? (I know, not a werewolf, but that's beside the point) (Point being wolves are dangerous, not domesticated) So yay for lethal wolves instead of puppies!

I loved, loved, loved the storytelling! From the moment I started I was sucked in and was just ignoring everything around me so I could luxuriate in the world and the words and the characters and just everything! Although a plea to anyone reading this: please don't ever use whisper-beg in well, basically anything. I KNOW it's something that you can do at the same time, but for some reason it makes my skin crawl.
But besides that one thing I loved the writing :)

And Mac, gosh, I really adore that girl! She hasn't had it easy and I could understand how her personality formed itself after that. I connected with her and was there with her second guessing everything and everyone because really, THE TWISTS JUST KEPT ON COMING! I mean, whenever I felt safe in my opinion of someone, everything got turned upside down again and I was left with my mouth hanging slightly open, going 'what??'. And I loved it! Though I did think the girl should at one point have stopped insisting she could take care of herself, because she'd been near death about 10 times in 3 days. I loved that her love interest knew her so well and that she did eventually trust herself and himself enough to admit her feeling for him. Good romance :)

Also, while sometimes I find that dream sequences don't work for me, in this case they really did! They were interesting and definitely added to the anticipation and it didn't feel contrived at all. I'm not sure how I feel about the love triangle though. It's not something that for me ruined anything about the story. Yet. I'm really hoping it will just sort of go away and not be a major thing in the sequel. Because I am only rooting for one boy and his name is:
***SPOILER, LIGHT UP TO READ***
KYLE. Seriously, that boy! Broke my heart when he just left and I had definitely not seen it coming... Can someone just please tell him being honorable isn't all it's cracked up to be?? Please?
***END OF SPOILER***

Oh, and the cover: it is le pretty!

So, in short: exciting, enticing debut novel with a heroine who's easy to relate to, a boy that made me swoon, good romance and werewolves that have maintained their GRRR!
I for one cannot wait for the sequel!

My rating: 5 stars