Books to Die For

Yvonne Navarro's WICKED WILLOW trilogy

And now for something completely different...

I've covered a vast variety of books and stories in this column thus far, from online serials and shorts to novels, novellas and even over-sized hardcovers featuring alternative histories and beautifully illustrated tales. This week, I add our first tie-in novel - or rather series of tie-in novels - to the mix. I know what you're thinking, tie-in novels often tend to be little more than quickly penned cash-grabs, creatively stifled by the narrative limits placed on their authors by the owners of the original property/franchise. But this is certainly not the case with Yvonne Navarro's WICKED WILLOW trilogy (THE DARKENING, SHATTERED TWILIGHT and BROKEN SUNRISE), which posits an alternate series of events for one of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER's best plot arcs.

I caught up with Navarro back in September 2010 for Rue Morgue #104 to discuss the trilogy, here's a bit more about the books from that issue:

If you're a BUFFY fan, you undoubtedly remember the end of sixth season where there's a three-episode plot arc in which Buffy's best friend, the witch Willow, turns into a revenge-seeking, evil magic dynamo after her girlfriend Tara is killed. While the TV narrative certainly has its dark moments, it always felt too short to me - a wasted storytelling opportunity.

Navarro felt the same way. "When I saw the whole Wicked Willow thing on the series, and the way it played out, the first thing I thought was, 'Too bad they didn't let her run with it. That would have been cool.'"

That's when Navarro, who's written previous BUFFY tie-in titles, pitched her version. And lucky for us, Simon & Schuster went for it, giving the author only one stipulation: "Wicked Willow had to be taken back to Good Willow in the final book in the trilogy just like she was in the television series."

This allowed Navarro to create one of the best tie-in stories ever. Since it begins and ends with scenes from the TV show, it is easy to imagine events in place of the actual ones. Here, Willow - after flaying Tara's killer - becomes obsessed with raising her lover from the grave. The mission sees her crippling Giles, kidnapping Spike and Oz to keep as pets, trapping the spirit of Buffy's ex, Riley, in a golem which she orders to attack her former friends, before, finally, handing them over to a demon that paralyzes its prey then slowly eats it alive. And did I mention that Willlow also enslaves a coven of witches and conjures a creature that kills Sunnydale's supernaturals to harvest their power for herself. Now, that's evil!

And exactly what inspired Navarro to think up such horror for Joss Whedon's characters? Quite simple, she says: "I've always been all about the dark side in my fiction."

While the trilogy is now sadly out-of-print, used copies remain relatively easy (and cheap) to find and procure from Amazon.