Willow Rose is a suspenseful, strange, and emotionally complex story that follows Dr. Alder Peony, a burned-out ER doctor stationed in a remote Minnesota hospital, as his quiet life begins to unravel in the wake of a mysterious comet streaking across the sky. When a young girl named Willow shows up out of nowhere, bloody, alone, and eerily self-assured, Alder gets pulled into something much deeper and darker than he expects. As strange phenomena begin to twist the world around him, Alder must confront not only external dangers but the mess of his own past, his guilt, and his longing for connection.

I was pulled in by how personal this story felt, even amid the sci-fi weirdness and apocalyptic tension. Hayden’s writing is confident but not showy. There’s a rhythm to it. Poetic in spots, sharp in others, and it balances the mundane and the cosmic really well. Some moments had me laughing with their casual honesty; others left me sitting in still silence, chewing on what just happened. I loved the flawed humanity of Alder. He’s no superhero. He’s lonely, exhausted, and at times bitter, but he’s also deeply decent, and watching him try (and sometimes fail) to do the right thing felt painfully real. The scenes with Faith and Willow, especially those quiet, in-between moments, made me feel something deep in my chest. It’s a rare thing for a book to hit that emotional frequency so consistently.

There were moments that leaned into mystery a bit more than I expected, and I occasionally found myself wishing for just a little more clarity. The comet’s influence begins with a quiet unease, then gradually shifts into something far more surreal. For some, that shift might feel too sharp or confusing. But I kind of liked the chaos. It made sense, in a weird way, that the story unraveled the same way Alder’s grip on normalcy did. You don’t get a tidy bow here. This is a story about being haunted by loss, trying to heal when you don’t know how, and maybe finding a thread to hang on to when everything else slips away.

I’d recommend Willow Rose to anyone who likes their fiction a little messy, a little emotional, and very relatable. If you’re into character-driven stories with threads of sci-fi, mystery, and deep feeling, think The Leftovers or Midnight Mass, then you’ll enjoy this book. It’s not flashy or high-octane, but it stays with you. I closed the final page with my chest tight and my mind still buzzing.

Pages: 201 | ASIN : B0DVSL6LPR