Marked (House of Night #1)

How do I keep getting sucked (pun intended) into teen lit vampire series'? At least I'm enjoying the reading even if I am too old for the intended audience. Marked was a good beginning to a series. Written by PC Cast (an established sci-fi writer) and her daughter, Kristen, It's about a normal high school girl, Zoey, who, while putzing around her locker one day, gets "marked" by a freaky vampire. After saying something dark and scary while pointing to her, she gets a quarter moon outline mark on her forehead. Her mom and step-dad are religious zealots and basically disown her, so she flees to grandma's house for some reassurance and comfort before going to the School of Night, a.k.a. the "vampyre finishing school." Her grandma is a Native American who believes in earth goddess-type stuff and is proud of Zoey getting marked. While visiting her grandma Zoey trips and knocks her noodle pretty hard and has an out of body experience where she is visited by the vampyre goddess Nyx. Nyx tells Zoey in her vision that she is special and fills in her half moon tattoo (something that doesn't happen until you're older and fully develop as a vampyre). She then has to get to the School of Night PDQ or else she could die before she has the chance to fully transform into a vampyre (which takes years). Once she arrives at school, it's clear that it's like every other high school, unfortunately, with snotty cliquey bratty girls and a few nice ones that help Zoey adjust.

I know it seems like I told you the whole plot of the book, but that's just how it starts. The rest is the interesting part where we get to learn about this particular world of vampyres and why Zoey is so special. And, of course, no vampire book with a female lead is complete without a totally hot vampire boy to have a crush on (I'm sure I didn't ruin that part for you). Overall, I think I like this one more than the Twilight series (so far anyway). This seems to have a little more substance to the writing and goes into more detail about the experiences. I've already started the next book in the series so look for the next review soon.