Marked: A House of Night Novel (a.k.a. I am a sucker for teenage witches (or vampires, as the case may be) Erm... no pun intended!)
Marked : A House of Night Novelby P.C. Cast & Kristin CastWhile the rest of the world was busy reading the final Harry Potter novel this weekend, I was contentedly devouring a couple of YA fantasy novels which I picked up last Wednesday. Since I was knee-high to a grasshopper I have had an obsession for Teen Witch type books. Not, mind you the Sabrina the Teenage Witch series, or idea, never liked that one. The best and my most favourite was a trilogy by LJ Smith (The Initiation, The Captive, The Power) which I still have on my bookshelf and reread about once a year.Oh, boy oh boy did I want to be a witch and have magical powers when I was growing up. To be able to light a candle with your mind and seriously feel the elements as you invoked them. But alas, Fate did not have any cool magical abilities in store for me, so I sit here a normal human who lives vicariously through fictional characters.I picked up this novel for a couple of reasons...
- Crescent moon on the cover. I am a sucker for crescent moons.
- The girl has a purple eye (which is odd because they say her eyes are hazel in the story and don't mention anything about them turning purple, and I am convinced that the girl on the cover is Keri Russell... but whatever).
- I liked the title and how it's all snuggled up to the crescent moon.
Then I read the back of the book and was even more convinced that I was taking it home with me. Based on the summary I read I was totally surprised with the actual plot of the book. I often enjoy when authors take a stab at lore alterations. Sometimes it works, most of the time it flops. But in this case... Vampires are not created by biting a victim. It's something that happens during puberty to some kids and they are "Marked". They get this outline of a crescent moon on their forehead and off they go to the House of Night, a private school for Vampire fledglings. The school itself has some pretty awesome classes, I probably would have payed attention to school if I had horse riding lessons, fencing lessons and the sociology of vampires! Also no one knows how The Change picks its, um, victims? And the vampires aren't all evil and murderous. It's a nifty way to combine cool vamp stuff with normal every day teen lit.And what hooked me even more and gave me this little whirl of excitement in the pit of my stomach is that these vamps (or fledglings) have witch-like powers. They invoke the 5 elements in their circle (wind, fire, water, air and spirit), say little prayer/spell things to their goddess, and seem to have magical powers. A combination of vampire and witch! Awesome!There is also some Cherokee lore thrown in there as the main character's (Zoey) grandmother is Cherokee. The authors have somehow woven Cherokee beliefs into the Vampire lore and it works pretty well, I'd say.What I didn't know was that this isn't a stand alone book. I was up until nearly midnight last night reading with a fervor when I suddenly noticed there were only about 4 pages left and there certainly wasn't going to be any closure any time soon! Oh, how frustrated I was to see that there will be a second book out in FALL 2007! Do you have any idea how vague FALL 2007 is? How I have to live with the frustration of not knowing what will happen to Zoey and her friends for another 2-4 months?! Curses!I loved the characters (most of them), I loved the dialogue and the humour. The dialogue and narration was very well written and I could actually here 16 year olds talking. There were even pop culture-type references (the girls in the dorm were watching America's Next top Model) a few comments here and there that made it obvious the story was taking place in 2007 (or maybe 2006?).The book combines three of my weaknesses when it comes to YA lit... a teenage girl trying to fit in, magic and vampires. How could I not buy this book? How can I not buy the second installment (Betrayed) when it comes out in FALL 2007?? There is even a crescent moon on the cover of the second book. It calls to me. I can once again dream of being chosen as the odd girl out to wield magical powers and be the one to save the world. How awesome is that?I have two other witchy-type books to read left. Wicked and Wicked 2, and they are both about 600+ pages. (Well, jeepers! I can't even find them on Amazon to link them up! I'll have to edit this when I get home and search by ISBN.) I am not sure if I will start on them or tackle Harry Potter. I think I can safely start Harry Potter since I think I am finally in the mood for it and I can be happy with not having read it the first weekend it came out. I am not a follower and to be honest I didn't really care that it was coming out. But that is just me.EDIT:: Woo! And here's the cover for the second book! I can't wait!
House of Night