Review--Thornhill by Kathleen Peacock

Mac can’t lose another friend. Even if he doesn’t want to be found.

The ripple effect caused by Mac’s best friend Amy’s murder has driven Mac’s new love, Kyle, to leave Hemlock and disappear from her life forever. But Mac knows that Kyle plans to enroll in a rehabilitation camp, where he can live with other werewolves. She refuses to accept his decision, especially since the camps are rumored to be tortuous. So she sets out in search of Kyle with a barely sober Jason—and Amy’s all-seeing ghost—in tow.

Clues lead Mac to find Kyle in a werewolf den in Colorado—but their reunion is cut short by a Tracker raid. Now Mac and Kyle are trapped inside the electric fences of Thornhill, a camp for young werewolves. As she devises an escape plan, Mac uncovers dangerous secrets buried within the walls of Thornhill—and realizes that the risk to the people she loves is greater than ever before.

EDIT: Based on my first comment, I realized I summed it up too much. Might still have summed it up pretty well, but I am leaving out crazy details. I know when I read a review, I kind of want to know more about what goes on then what the description says, so I try to add more to the storyline than what we're told. But I think I just expand a bit more on some of the characters and their personalities, I pretty much just tel you what the description says but add a little detail here and there.


Love, love, love this series!!! And I struggle to explain why, it's just that I do! I love it naturally!! Thornhill is the second book in Kathleen Peacock's Hemlock series? trilogy? Not sure which is meant to be, likely trilogy as that seems the way of things in YA! But regardless, I'll be sticking with it til its very end!

Now I love my vampires, my reading obsession began with a vampire novel, but there's just something about werewolves that I oh so love!! They are freaking incredible! And depending on what author, they can live forever too, being pretty much locked in a prime age, or they age incredibly slow and are near eternal. Werewolves seem to have it all!

Now moving on...it's been freaking forever since I read Hemlock as an ARC in 2012 and then had to wait nearly a month to receive Thornhill in the mail, but luckily I kind of remembered a teeny bit of the story. And Mac recaps enough that I was able to follow along fairly well! The story begins with Mac and Jason going out to Colorado to find Kyle and bring him home. They are soon joined by Serena in their quest, much to Jason's disappointment.

When they find Kyle, he is amongst a werewolf pack. The reunion is a bit chaotic. Now the pack leader of this group of ragtag weres is someone that kind of comes as a shock to us readers. I won't say who, even though it's revealed fairly early on and I did read a review where it had been revealed, but I'd rather leave it as a surprise. It was pretty surprising to me...but then again I haven't read Hemlock since I got it at RT 2012 as an ARC, so it's been a looooong time!

After the reunion, the chaos really begins as a group of Trackers crash the place and take all the weres to one of the retention camps. Thornhill is a camp for teens, the young weres who are more likely to be "reformed" and placed back into society once they have control of their shifting and all that jazz. Mac is taken among them as well despite being human and it's only by chance and a little work on her part that she's able to convince them she's a were. She doesn't want to leave Serena and Kyle to these people's hands.

Of course sticking together isn't possible either when Serena is taken away from them. Mac is driven with crazy grief over what might be happening to her friend at these people's hands. The Warden isn't of the best of sound mind, not that she's uber crazy, but let's just say she has a few unorthodox methods of rehabilitation at her camp. I think that's what makes the scariest of villains! Not the ones that look scary in appearance and can do irreparable damage, although those are scary too, but the ones who look so normal, yet are freaking messed up in their heads and yet think they are totally normal and sane! When obviously they are not.

Mac, along with another were from her father's pack, Eve, with Kyle plan on escaping but Mac won't go without Serena. But there are too many ways for their escape attempts to go wrong. And if the Warden and the guards were to figure out that Mac isn't a were, things might turn to crap pretty quickly! 

One teeny tiny thing that kind of bugs me about this book is the cover. Now don't get me wrong I absolutely LOVE the covers of this series so far, but they always show Mac--at least I feel it's a safe bet to call the girl Mac--with brown hair when in the book it says she has blond. But yeah, small grievance in the grand scheme of things!

I think what drives me to love this series so much, so far is the characters. The characters are absolutely incredible! They are so real, so defined and relatable. They aren't totally out there characters, they are quite realistic teens...despite a few of them being weres. I feel compelled to care about them. To root for them and cry with them at their downfalls. Generally when reading I do love the characters and enjoy their adventures and all that, but sometimes there's just a particular book or series where the characters really grab at your heart and hold on til that last page, and the Hemlock series is definitely one of those!

There was lots of action in this one! Lots of planning and suspenseful situations. Quite particularly where Mac is locked in a cage with a bunch of weres on the verge of shifting. Luckily she has Kyle with her...sigh...Kyle. And of course we have a nice big fight scene towards the end! It was definitely one you could see coming and I looooved the end results! There wasn't much of romance for the two since they are constantly in danger of some kind, but there are a few stolen kisses throughout! It's clear to see that they love one another, despite their always trying to protect the other by putting themselves into danger.

Of course, the actual ending of the book, was a bit more heart-stopping. Kathleen isn't letting us sigh with relief yet. She's allowed us to catch our breaths for the moment, but danger is still near and on the rise! I am not sure what we can expect of the next novel, but I definitely know it will be epic!

There's not quite as strong of a mystery going on this time, since that was pretty much wrapped up in Hemlock. But there were still a few things that made you wonder what was going on. Particularly with the camp Thornhill. Luckily, there's enough action and suspense to make up for that. Amy is still there as well, which I was kind of glad for. She visits Mac in her dreams and their encounters are always pretty cryptic. Amy always seems to know what's going on and sometimes I feel like she might know what will happen next. It seems like she's not always with it, mentally, but I think it's an interesting way of showing her since she is a ghost of sorts. She makes for a fascinating character!

Without a doubt, Thornhill definitely makes the GREATEST reads list this year! I would definitely recommend this series in a heartbeat if you're looking for a most incredible werewolf read!


Overall Rating 5/5 stars