House of Night (Giveaway Points Post)

Giveaway ALERT! If you've already entered the contest, a comment on this post (within 5 days of post date) gets you 2 extra entries in our MegaBook Giveaway. If you haven't entered yet, go to the contest post (or click on the contest link on the upper right sidebar) to learn about the giveaway and enter! Good luck!

Marked and Betrayed

by
P.C. Cast and Kristen Cast

pub: 2007

320 pages each

Synopsis: 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 fledging vampyre and joins The House of Night, a school where she will trained 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 the Dark Daughters, the school's most elite group, 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.

I love the Cast's take on vampyre lore. It's similar to the Charlaine Harris vamps in that everyone knows vampires are out there and are generally accepted by society.

In this series, the vampyre disease only shows up when you hit puberty -- so basically when you hit high school -- but you don't know if you have it until an adult vamp taps your forehead and --tada!-- a crescent moon outline appears on your forehead. You get sent to vampyre school, and if the disease doesn't kill you in four years then you graduate as a full-on vamp, the crescent moon on your forehead fills in, the change creates beautiful tattoos all over your body and, of course, some vamps have special powers. You still have to deal with blood-lust and sunlight to a degree, but that comes with vampyre territory.

The plot is insanely interesting - seeing as it revolves around this new breed of vampyre it had to be interesting! A newbie conquering the all powerful priestess? Oh yeah, the twists and turns are great!

Oh...did I forget to mention vampyre hotties? Yeah, House of Night is full of them. Of course, that means sexual tension, but...no, actually, I can't find a problem with that.

Alas, this series is just not for me. My brothers were shocked. "It has vampires. It was like...written for you." Zoey is a strong character, but a tad too teenage angsty for me. There were things in the book that took me out of the moment, things that just do not belong in a teenage protagonist's voice - things that adults think belong in a teenage protagonist's voice.

For example, Zoey has this irritating aversion to swearing, which...no-swearing is fine, but it's not like Zoey says "Dang it" or "Shucks" or just plain avoids swearing, Zoey says "poopie." Yeah, you read that right, poopie. I made it through the third book (Chosen) before I shrugged off the series.

One the other hand, one of my life long friends absolutely loves this series. She basically has each book framed on her wall. Little creepy. In fact, she just called me while I wrote this post and let me know she wasn't slowly dying anymore because she finally got time to start reading Tempted, the sixth installment in this series.

I will admit, the ideas the Cast mother daughter team present are unique they do a great job of drawing you into the House of Night world.

This book really is in the eye of the beholder. You'll either love it or hate it or shrug and "meh" it. Reading is soooo subjective. I figured we'd better throw Marked and Betrayed in the give away since, just because I didn't like it, doesn't mean everyone else doesn't or won't like it either. And everywhere I look this series gets five star reviews.

I'd recommend this series to older paranormal fans.

Older because that sexual tension escalates into sexual content.

We have Marked and Betrayed available in the MegaBook Giveaway, so go to the contest post to enter!