Friday, July 13, 2012

Review: Burn Mark by Laura Powell

Synopsis:
Glory is from a family of witches and lives beyond the law. She is desperate to develop her powers and become a witch herself. Lucas is the son of the Chief Prosecutor for the Inquisition—the witches’ mortal enemy—and his privileged life is very different to the forbidden world that he lives alongside.

And then on the same day, it hits them both. Glory and Lucas develop the Fae—the mark of the witch. In one fell stroke, their lives are inextricably bound together, whether they like it or not . . .


Publication Date: June 19, 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal, Witch
Source: Thanks so much to Bloomsbury USA for providing me with a review copy.


Review:

I was so excited to read this book after seeing what it was about from the synopsis. I admit to having high expectations for it, and now that I've read it I really have to say that it blew me out of the water. The writing is superb, dual perspective stunningly executed, killer storyline, perfectly built world...it has it all.

Burn Mark is set in Britain and it was the perfect backdrop for this story. Add in a bit of magic, politics, old-school-style-mob-like covens, and illegal magic use...um, yes, please! Ah! World-building done supremely right. The whole system of how the Inquisition worked along with cooperating witches from the WICA organization was so interesting. And I LOVED how the covens were set up as these scarily powerful mob-types. The fact that the girl MC, Glory is the one that grew up and is comfortable in this setting makes her a crazy-cool and street smart kind of girl. Lucas is the one that finds himself reeling when his plans of joining The Inquisition are shattered after he comes into his fae powers. Laura Powell writes a mean male POV. I really loved his character.

If you read my blog at all you know I'm kind of a sucker for romancey-schmancy type stories. This is a great example of a book that builds a relationship within the story, but the story isn't about the love. And guess what? I didn't care that it wasn't only about Lucas and Glory's relationship. Yes, that is a part of it, but the entire plot is so well-rounded that nothing is left out. As I mentioned before Burn Mark is written from the POV of Lucas and Glory. They are from two different worlds and through a surprising turn of events they end up having to work together. I loved how they gradually came to see their similarities and really just the whole evolution of their relationship.

While being a paranormal book at its core, Burn Mark felt equal parts Thriller to me with all the conspiracy and corruption going on. Everything came together to make this a hard to put down book. I SO look forward to any follow-up novels in this series. Fans of the paranormal and magic in particular will want to try this one out!

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