SPOILER WARNING! This review may contain some spoilers for the plots of the two volumes in question. In volume 4, Keys to the Kingdom, the three Locke siblings are still fighting against the Dark Lady, whose inhabiting the body of the person they think is their friend Zach. He’s posing as Kinsey’s affectionate boyfriend and Tyler’s loyal friend, trying to get one of the siblings to reveal where the crucial and powerful Omega key is hidden. Over the course of this volume, the Locke children seem […]
For the night is dark and full of shadows
This is volume 3 in an ongoing story arc and really won’t make much sense to anyone beginning the series here. Start at the beginning with Vol 1: Welcome to Lovecraft. The three half-orphaned Locke children, Tyler, Kinsey and Bode, have already gone through so much horror and heartbreak, and it doesn’t seem to be letting up any time soon. Their mother is becoming less dependable, as she’s gradually descending further into alcoholism and madness, aggravated by the evil spirit haunting their lives. Kinsey is […]
The End and The Beginning.
What a great ending to this series. Endings are so tough. A bad ending can deflate the whole experience of a narrative. A good ending ties everything together, and nothing can beat that feeling of satisfaction you get as all the threads are tied up, secrets revealed, and connections made. Also, though, this was brutal. I’m not saying I haven’t read books that aren’t more of a bloodbath than this one is, because I have, but the body count is large, and people you love […]
The penultimate volume.
This is the one where you get all of the answers. And they are good answers! There’s nothing so satisfying as a series that poses lots of interesting mysteries, then gives you compelling origins and solutions for all of them. Also, when some of those answers manage to surprise you, and re-contextualize what you thought about the story previously. Clockworks opens with a strange flashback to the Revolutionary War, and we learn at last the origin story of the Keys. And so too do Kinsey […]
Getting ready for the endgame.
There are only two more volumes after this one, so it’s apparently time for Locke & Key to get ready for the endgame. For as fun as the last couple issues have been (and by “fun” I mean horrifying and interesting and really hard to put down), once everything was introduced in Vol. 1, everything was actually pretty status quo, relatively speaking. New keys, Dodge trying to manipulate the Lockes while hiding in plain sight, bad things happening all over the place . . . but in Keys […]
Seriously imaginative fantasy/horror.
This series is so imaginative. And the further in you get, the more stuff it throws at you. I’m actually finding it really difficult to write about it because the more detailed it gets, the weirder it gets, and the more impossible it becomes to talk about. Tyler, Kinsey and Bode have somewhat adjusted to living in Keyhouse, and to using the keys, but their mother is only falling apart harder and faster. The still mysterious Dodge is seeking the Omega Key, the key that will […]