Wicked Willow I: The Darkening (Buffy the Vampire Slayer) (Mass Market Paperback)

by Yvonne Navarro (Author) "They say that there are millions of alternate life pathways, that each and every one of us generates a new path and alternate persona with..." (more)
Key Phrases: sine kot diabi, sine kot diabl, vengeance demon, Magic Box, Spongy Face, Scooby Gang (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

"Willow, what have you done?"
-- Buffy, "Villains"

In the woods outside Sunnydale, Willow Rosenberg has exacted a terrible revenge for the murder of her lover Tara Maclay: She has captured Warren, the murderous leader of the Trio, and flayed him alive. Her best friends, Buffy Summers and Xander Harris, arrived too late to stop her.

But the death of Warren isn't enough for Willow. Now her friends can only watch as the juiced-up witch sets off on a trail of vengeance and magick-gathering to prepare the spell that will bring Tara back to life. And whoever gets in Willow's way is going to regret it...including one Slayer who is still hoping to save her best friend.

Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Simon Spotlight Entertainment (May 4, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743427742
• ISBN-13: 978-0743427746
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #117,933 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A less than stellar start to the "Wicked Willow" trilogy, June 19, 2004

By	Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

"The Darkening" is the first book of the "Wicked Willow" trilogy by Yvonne Navarro which asks the question, "What if Evil Willow was never stopped?" The story begins with Willow inspecting Warren's skinned corpse at the end of "Villains." Buffy, Xander, and Anya show up to see Willow's handiwork but before the wicked witch of Sunnydale can say "One down, two to go" she experiences a split second of weirdness and things become very different. Instead of going after Jonathan and Andrew, Willow decides to banter with Buffy over Warren's fate, turning her cold fury into hot rage in the process. Nothing is going to stand in the way of her revenge.

Okay, so we have a reasonable set up to explore the path not taken. However, the problem is that is Wicked Willow is at DEFCON 5 at this point and we are still in the prologue of the first book of a trilogy, then it is going to be hard to keep escalating from here to the end, seven or eight hundred pages later. So instead, Navarro executes a sharp turn, which is sort of necessitated because if Evil Willow is never stopped then the world ends. Now Willow's immediate plan is no longer revenge, but resurrection, despite rather impressive indications that Tara cannot be brought back from a natural death. However, this decision undercuts the entire set up. Willow wins the initial battle between Buffy and Giles, but this time the victory is quicker and more significant. Then we settle into something of a waiting game where interesting new developments, such as Willow's selection of a pair of pets, really does not go anywhere. Navarro comes up with a great character idea in Ross, but abandons him as well. At the end, when the characters take stock of their situation and reaffirm their goals, I did not get the sense that we had moved much beyond where we essentially started.

Season Six of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" just came out on DVD so the way the unexpected way the season finished, with Darth Rosenberg turning out to be the surprise Big Bad at the end and with the world being saved this time around by Xander and the memory of a yellow crayon. The whole point of telling an alternative version of a story is to come up with something special and Navarro has not really let the cat out of the bag on what that would be here. Ironically, given that Evil Willow wanted to end the world, the alternative has to be something else, which, by definition, would tend to be less significant.

I also have a continuity question with "The Darkening" in that it is suggested that Dawn no longer has memories of the Scoobies that predate her appearance in Season Five. If there was something in "BtVS" that suggested that was the case I must have missed it. Then there is the idea that Dawn, who finally gets a moment to do something in "Grave" because there is really no other choice, would be sent off to be part of a battle on purpose, which I do not buy. Then there is the issue of Tara's Ghost, which I suspect is more than it appears to be. After all, I do not think she really sounds like Tara and since she is the biggest change between this alternative story line and the original I am both wary and suspicious.

However, the most problematic character in the book is Anya, which makes sense because she is the most problematic character in the series and in the "BtVS" original novels. The Anya who talked Xander into attending the Prom during Season 3 ended up replacing him as the comic relief in the series and the idea that she would not stop talking about their sex life was done to death (and beyond). Anya's lack of the social graces was also overplayed: she had been a vengeance demon for over a millennium, so how come in all that vengeance mongering she failed to pick up on any contemporary social conventions? But here the question is her feelings for Xander, which seem to be rather different from what they were in the final three episodes from Season Six. Navarro is trying to take more advantage of Anya being a demon again, and I keep tyring to figure out if she is going to be playing a pivotal role in what is to come.

The goal of the first book in a series such as this is have us wondering what will happen next, but with "The Darkening" I am still trying to figure out what is going on in the first book that provides a great hook for the next volumes. When I compare what we had at the end of either of the first two volumes in Michael Golden's "The Lost Slayer" serial novel, what we have here does not even compare. There may well be something suitably wicked coming this way and it could be set up by what is here, but we have yet to come to the point in the "Wicked Willow" tragedy where we get hooked big time. I give this one the benefit of the doubt only because I cannot imagine the editors would give the go ahead for a "BtVS" trilogy that would not justify being told in more than one book. But at this point the best that can be said is that the pieces are being moved into position for something bigger and better.

16 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Prue Drivel, June 21, 2004

By A Customer

Negative stars.

The Dark Magic Willow was a bad enough idea, to take a bad idea and run with it is far worse. But not only is the concept bad, the writting is on the level of Fan-Fiction. I was shocked to learn that Ms. Navarro had written other books because this looks like a first attempt to me.

Save your money and time. Even if you like Willow there is none of the Willow we knew here. Even for an AU.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A captivating look at the world of Evil Willow, May 30, 2004

By	jsdunk "jsdunk" (Camas, WA USA) - See all my reviews

I've read most of the Buffy books. I'm big fan of the show and got hooked on the books early on. I have to say that this is one of the best of series.

Imagine if Giles, Xander and the gang hadn't been able to turn Willow back to good. Imagine a world where Willow is the new 'big bad' in Sunnydale. Imagine that Buffy's next mission is to stop her best friend. Having seen Willow go so far down the evil road during the season six finale, its not hard to imagine. And, Yvonne Navarro does a brilliant job of bringing that possible world to life.

The Darkening tells the story of Willow's grief. She turns her back on her friends and desperately tries to both make those responsible (in her mind) pay for her loss of Tara and to bring Tara back.

The Darkening captures the motivations and behaviours of the characters perfectly -- from Willow's grief and angst over her loss of Tara to Anya's pointed truth-telling. We get an incredible look into the world that might have been.

The Darkening is a 'must read' for any Buffy fan.