Product details: - Paperback: 272 pages
- Author: Yvonne Navarro
- Publisher: Pocket Books
- Publication Date: 2004-07-05
- Studio: Pocket Books
- Manufacturer: Pocket Books
- Package Dimensions: 6.93 x 47 x 75 inches
Customer reviews:  BAD WILLOW, 2004-11-09
After reading 'The Darkening' I was pleased that it had a completely different story to the actual program. It begins straight after Willow kills Warren having sucked up quite a bit of power for herself. The book itself contains good originality bringing back an old member of the Buffy series to the plot and an insane Spike. Willow gets a new place of her own and traps a good number of Wiccans to gather power for her by creating a certain creature that will turn against her and test how powerful Willow really is. The ghost of Tara comes back to help Willow get over her death but Willow will have none of it. Overall a very good book all together with many original ideas that will continue into the trilogy.
 "BtVS" fans are going to be sorry they read this trilogy, 2004-08-25
There was a flicker of hope for Yvonne Navarro's "Wicked Willow" trilogy at the end of the second volume, "Shattered Twilight." This alternative history of the end of Season 6 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" has Darth Rosenberg devoted all her Wicca energies to brining back Tara, who is hanging around as a ghost and at the end of the second book is seemed pieces were finally falling into place. Buffy and the Scoobies had discovered what Willow was really up to and Giles captures the Ghost of Tara, binding her to the Magic Box. Obviously Willow was going to go ballistic as soon as she discovered what had happened, but "Shattered Twilight" ended without her getting a clue but still being enraged. So there was some dramatic tension to set up the last volume, but not as much as there could be or as there should be to get you all excited about the last book.
Then we get to the start of "Broken Sunrise" and in the prologue a WEEK has passed since the end of the previous book and Willow still does not have a clue about why she has not see the Ghost of Tara until a new character conveniently shows up and tells her. Does this make wicked Willow go nuclear? No, not yet. Meanwhile, Giles and everybody else has apparently been settling into a normal routine instead of living in fear that Willow is going to level the Magic Box at any moment. Instead, after a week, Giles comes up with a plan to offer Willow a trade: time with Tara for the return of Oz and Spike. Remember them? They have been Willow's chained pets since the first book, "The Darkening," and if you think something dramatic is finally going to happen with them or the Riley Golem from "Shattered Twilight," forget it. There is not big payoff to any of this, even though you would think there has to be a point to Oz being brought back into the picture. This is true about the subplot involving the two members of Willow's coven that Giles made disappear. Again, we think there is more here than meets the eye, but it turns out there is not. Eventually Willow gets mad enough to do something and she summons yet another demon (how many is that now?) to take on Buffy and the Scoobies. Now, I have to admit that this particular demon does something particularly gruesome and I was thinking that Navarro was finally going to let Willow embrace the dark side and inject some actual horror into the proceedings. But the bad stuff that happens happens to happen at such a slow pace that it is obvious she is avoiding dealing with the consequences of her idea being played out to it logical conclusion, which is that some of the Scoobies would be dead. Then we have Buffy dashing off to the rescue only to give up because she cannot figure a way to get into a building and going back to the Magic Box, which is not exactly the sort of heroics you envision for the Slayer, but that is par for the course for Buffy in this trilogy. The one character that comes out ahead of the game here is Anya and Navarro certainly gets credit for dealing with the character as she was during the final episodes of Season Six. Most writers of "BtVS" novels overdo Anya's tendency to say the wrong think, usually with regards to her sex life with Xander, so it was refreshing that the once and former vengeance demon had a substantial role in the story. But Anya having a bigger role than Buffy and Xander in a story featuring Willow is not going to sit well with most readers, especially since Anya is not part of the end game (but she probably should have been, because it would have to be better than what we get). The final three chapters of "Broken Sunrise" are where Navarro is going to have readers wondering why she bothered with this alternative-history trilogy. Wicked Willow finally does get her chance to at least try and get Tara back, and Navarro comes up with a neat story from world mythology that offers a pointed lesson for Willow on the error or her ways (which also fits what Tara told Willow in the episode "Forever"). But then we have the final three chapters and you will find yourself wondering what was the point of reading this trilogy, why the editors signed off on this ending, and why does David Fury's name not appear prominently at some point since he is really the one that wrote those three chapters. Sigh. I really do think that there is a good "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" story here, one that could have worked as a single volume (even a hardback one) rather than a trilogy. Navarro has several interesting ideas, but she does not exploit any of them as much as she should, and she absolutely needs a new ending for the simple reason that is pretty much a prerequisite for an alternative-history story. This story could have been fixed and if it did not end up being a great "BtVS" story at least it would have been above average. The selling point for this series was the question, "What is Evil Willow was never stopped?" But at the end of "Broken Sunrise" it turns out that was not the point of this trilogy at all. "The Gatekeeper" trilogy remains the consensus choice as the best "BtVS" trilogy, while "Wicked Willow" is going to occupy the other end of the spectrum. Customers who bought this item also bought:
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