Book Review: Marked House of Night Book 1 by P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast

Cover of Marked (House of Night, Book 1)

• Review: Marked
• Series: House of Night Book 1
• Author: P.C. Cast & Kristin Cast
• No of Pages: 307
• Release Date: May 1st 2007

I just finished the amazing books by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast, well the first three, and my mouth is literally watering for more!

While working on my summer read list for the Summer 2012 Book Challenge, I decided to finally read the books written by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast. I have had them sitting around and although I find vampires very alluring, tragic, intriguing, fascinating, sexy and simply wonderful, for some reason I just had not pushed myself into actually reading the first three of the series. So they sat, lonely and collecting dust. Until this week when I ventured into the cover of Marked.What I found was a wondrous world of teenagers who had been “Marked”.

There also stands the gloomy house of Night;

ghastly clouds shroud it in darkness.

Before it Atlas stands erect and on his head

and unwearing arms firmly support the broad sky,

where night and day cross a bronze threshhold

and then come close and greet each other.

(Hesiod, Theogony, 744 ff).

As if your life changing was not enough, most humans thought that being marked made you a freak and quite literally would freak out when someone near them was marked. Yes, humans know about Vampyres but believe them to be more of a Bram Stoker’s Dracula type of vamp instead of the sophisticated species that they really are. So, not only do these poor teenagers have to up and leave their life to start a new one, normally their friends and family would not understand and therefore could not or would not be supportive.

Which is exactly what happened to our Zoey Redbird.

If you enjoyed reading Twilight I believe you will also enjoy Marked. If Twilight had a Finishing School for Vampires, this would be it. The intrigue is more than just a pair of star crossed lovers, it’s about right and wrong and being able to sometimes make mistakes but picking yourself up and dusting yourself off. Great story, I am absolutely in love with Zoey and her strength, and  yes even her failures. She is only a fledgling vampyre after all. 😉

Enter the dark, magical world of the House of Night, a world very much like our own, except here vampyres have always existed. Sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird has just been Marked as a fledgling vampyre and joins the House of Night, a school where she will train to become an adult vampyre. That is, if she makes it through the Change- and not all of those who are Marked do. It sucks to begin a new life, especially away from her friends, and on top of that Zoey is no average fledgling. She has been chosen as special by the vampyre Goddess Nyx. Zoey discovers she has amazing powers, but along with her powers come bloodlust and an unfortunate ability to Imprint her human ex-boyfriend. To add to her stress, she is not the only fledgling at the House of Night with special powers: When she discovers that the leader of teh Dark Daughters, the school’s most elite groupos, is misusing her Goddess-given gifts, Zoey must look deep within herself for the courage to embrace her destiny — with a little help from her new vampyre friends. — Synopsis from Marked.

I could not put this book down. I literally flew through it and thoroughly enjoyed every word. 4.5/5

And onto the next…Betrayed!

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Tags: Book review, House of Night, Kristin Cast, marked, P. C. Cast, Theogony, Vampire, Zoey Redbird