Review: Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock

Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock
Release Date: May 8, 2012
Format: Hardcover, 416 pages
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Series: Hemlock #1
Source: Library

Description from Goodreads:
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.

My hopes and expectations for this book were super high. Like, seriously. The kind of hope that is really only setting me up for disappointment. Most of the time, at least. But not this time. Kathleen Peacock has given us a nice, intriguing werewolf story that is anything but disappointing.

The way that Kathleen aproaches the idea of werewolves is nice. It has nothing to do with full moons, but is a disease instead. It's not a big secret from the world, but is pretty much an epidemic no one wants to admit they have when they get it. I find all the werewolf information in this story absolutely interesting.

Next, I must discuss the plot. First of all, I really liked that the plot is mostly focused around Mac trying to figure out what happened to Amy, as opposed to being built around the fact that there is a werewolf love interest, and an anti-werewolf love interest and whatnot. These things are still part of the story, but the central piece is figuring out just WHAT exactly happened to their best friend.

Character Rundown:
Mac: I liked her. I didn't get the awkward feeling reading through her point of view that I get a lot of the time in this book. She's a solid character, and I'm looking forward to reading more from her eyes.
Kyle: He's the wolf. That's not a spolier, because it's not really all that surprising. Kyle's okay. If I were to know him in real life, I admit that I'd probably think he was incredibly sweet, but reading about him just irritated me a bit. He's one of those white-knight, I-have-to-leave-to-protect-you kind of guys. Which is SOMETIMES okay. Only sometimes. Most of the time, it just ticks me off. Kyle is an example of this, though I do feel for him a teeny, tiny bit.
Jason: He's my boy. I'm currently Team Jason. He is the anti-werewolf friend. Which makes perfect sense, considering his girlfriend was killed by one. Even more than that, though, I just felt like Jason was the most real character in this story. He was doing what he thought was right, and he tried so, so hard. I do admit that I disagree wholeheartedly with his drinking, but from the looks of it, that little habbit should be going bye-bye, or at least toning down a bit. And you know what? He reminds me of Adrian from Vampire Academy/Bloodlines. Am I the only onw who thinks this?

Sweetness. So much. There's a lot of protectiveness in this book, which I always love to see. In this book, however, the whole one-couple-romance thing took the backseat for me, overshadowed by the friendship. This used to be a group of four really good friends, and one of them just died. This is the story of what happens after she's gone. I'm not saying there's not romance, I'm just saying that to me, this story was made by the friendship. There were loads of AWWWW moments, though, so do not worry.

The ending. The ending reinforces the friendship thing I was just saying, but it also implies that there is totally going to be some love-triangle tension in the near future. I was left wanting the next book. This would be classified as a cliffhanger, but not one worth ranting about, so a good job done by Kathleen Peacock.

Overall, this was a good one to be excited about. It was mysterious and exciting, sweet and intriguing. If you're looking for a fun werewolf read, Hemlock is definitely the book for you.

♥Jessica(: