I received this book for free from in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
Series: The Marked #1
on 7-20-2013
Genres: Adventure, Fantasy
Format: eBook
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For all of written history, on the day of Da Un Marcu, fifty boys and girls across the three kingdoms are marked. They become a class apart from society. Taken to join their brothers and sisters, the Chisanta, they enter a culture of knowledge-keepers, martial artists, and possessors of strange and wonderful abilities.
When Yarrow discovers himself marked, he feels lost and lonely; until he meets Bray, a spirited and curious girl with whom he feels uncommonly connected. As the two of them become familiar with their new lives, unaccountable events unsettle the peace. A mysterious murder leaves the Chisanta in confusion. Odder still, one of the fifty children never arrives. In the years that follow, more and more children of the Chisanta go missing.
Ten years later, the devastating truth comes to light. The death of a young marked girl is uncovered. Yarrow and Bray—separated for a decade and grown apart—are thrust back together to investigate the crime. Can they overcome their differences to save the fate of their kind and the peace of the nation?
This book is a fantasy set in a world in which people are “marked” by spirits/Gods/some other power and set aside as protectors. They possess special abilities, martial arts skills, and power. We are introduced to these special people (called the Christana) through the eyes of several newly marked. We follow them through their lives until they must team together to find out why their numbers are slowly dwindling each year.
This book is a new favorite for me. It really had everything I like. It has a great world, strong characters, romance, coming of age, mystery, magic, and more. I really loved the characters, especially Yarrow and Bray…they are very multi-faceted and deep. I enjoyed seeing the differences in the two factions of Christana and how they interacted with each other and with the non-marked. I loved the imagination here, of the world, and of all the special abilities the characters had.
One thing I found interesting was the phrase “division of the marked”. As you go through the book, you can see this phrase redefined and given new meaning. At first you would think it simply means the difference between the marked and unmarked ones, and then you think it could apply to the division between the two factions of Christana, and then you think it could be something else…
All-in-all I loved this book. I don’t have anything bad to say except I found one word in the entire novel that I felt was a bit too modern/slang to be used in a fantasy world. So that isn’t finding much bad to say. I’m really looking forward to reading the next one in the series.
About March McCarron
March McCarron grew up outside of Philadelphia. She earned a BA in English, and—useless degree in hand—went on to wait tables and sell used cars. More recently, she moved to South Korea with her husband, where she teaches English at a private academy. Aside from writing, she loves travel, craft beer, folk music, and all things geek.
