"Marked" is Magical

"House of Night: Marked'
by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

5

The day starts off like every other until Zoey is marked to become a vampyre. Even though vampyres are a part of the society Zoey lives in, they are still feared and most people consider them freaks. She must leave her home and is taken to The House of Night, a school for fledglings like her, where she goes through the transformation into a vampyre. Leaving her past life is no big deal for Zoey because of the problems with her stepfather, but she is terrified about what it means to become a vampyre. Zoey is hoping to fit into her new home; however, due to the uniqueness of her mark, Zoey is already realizing that she is different from the others. She starts experiencing things that she shouldn't experience until farther along in her transformation and Zoey begins to worry that there is something deeply wrong with her. As if she didn't have enough to worry about, the Dark Daughters are interested in recruiting her into their elite club because of her mark. Zoey soon learns that the leader of The Dark Daughters is abusing her sacred powers given to her by the Goddess. Zoey knows what she has to do, but does her unique mark give her the strength to do what is necessary?

Overall I loved this book. I found it be really unique on many levels. I loved how people are marked to become vampyres and how they are given gifts by the Goddess. P.C. Cast and her daughter took the idea of being a vampyre and turned it into a spiritual experience that I have not seen in other books. Another thing that I loved was that even though the supernatural elements in the book were vivid and realistic, I still felt like this world could actually exist because there was the same focus to detail when describing the everyday elements in the book. The characters in the book are well developed and I finished the book wanting to read more! My only complaint about the book was that it took me a while to get into the story; however, once I got into it I couldn't stop reading. I am definitely looking forward to reading more in the series and will be requesting them from the library this week!

I also discovered the there is a really cool website for the series, so if you want to check that out then go here. There are video clips, a really cool yearbook, and lot of information about the series.