A review by booksandinternalstruggle
Mark of the Witch by Maggie Shayne
4.0
“It stared at me. A shapeless, formless being whose only clear feature was its eyes. And they were eyes I’d seen before, but I was damned if I knew where. Human eyes, though. Very human. Very…beautiful. And roiling with pain.”
I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed this book. Enough to give it four stars, even.
Let’s talk about Indira. Or Indy. She’s a former Wiccan who renounced her faith in magic and the goddess at a time in her life when magic didn’t seem to be in her favor. She lives a normal, albeit lonely life, with faith in nothing aside from the organic and one more cigarette. However, magic reenters Indira’s life, violent and uninvited; first in dreams of a woman that was her but wasn’t, from which she would awaken with mysterious injuries. Then, Indy is afflicted with visions, inexplicable injuries, and what seem to be boughs of possession during the day and with witnesses. Frightened and left with few options, Indy decides it’s time to call an old friend and high priestess from her Wiccan days in hope of finding answers. She hasn’t seen anything like this before, but knows someone that might be able to help, and his name is Tomas.
Meanwhile, Father Dom comes from a line of gnostic priests charged with preventing the return of a demon vanished to the underworld thousands of years ago in Babylonia. He has just one chance to find and destroy the amulet before the demon’s servants can bring it to the portal and release him from his prison. Luckily, he has trained and indoctrinated a young priest named Tomas to complete this task. But will Tomas be able to go through with his task and save the world if it means he has to kill a witch whom he has sworn to protect. Can she really be evil when she seems so innocent? Are the feelings that he has begun to feel real, or is the long-ago past that has come back to haunt him merely a manipulation by a witch whose sole purpose is to release a demon that will destroy all of mankind?
Filled with tests of faith, challenges in ideology, romance, and mystery, Mark of the Witch does the whole past life/magic thing the right way. And I think we’ve all seen it done improperly before. Both parallel storylines are excellent, and the romance doesn’t feel rushed or forced with ‘why is this happening’ drama. Also, the witch and priest struggling with his belief system is hot, and Indira’s struggle with her faith and embracing her abilities and who she is empowering. The character’s played their parts perfectly; where the whole ‘world-building’ thing was lacking, they made up for it. Father Dom is the perfect old crazy religious zealot, hell-bent on getting what he wants in the name of ‘God’ and not really caring who he has to hurt…or kill…to get it. Rayne is the perfect combination of whimsical and confident, modern woman and I’d believe anything she told me to be true.
My only real criticism was that I wanted more information about Indira’s past life earlier on. If you’re like me and you like to have all the facts laid out for you, I’d suggest reading Legacy of the Witch (The Portal #0.5) before embarking on Mark of the Witch. I didn’t, and it isn’t necessary to get the whole story, but it is $1.99 and only like fifty pages. Thus, it may be worth checking out to see if the series is for you or not.
Or you can watch this cheesy video from when Mark of the Witch was nominated for the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award in 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-znVZOQwiI
I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed this book. Enough to give it four stars, even.
Let’s talk about Indira. Or Indy. She’s a former Wiccan who renounced her faith in magic and the goddess at a time in her life when magic didn’t seem to be in her favor. She lives a normal, albeit lonely life, with faith in nothing aside from the organic and one more cigarette. However, magic reenters Indira’s life, violent and uninvited; first in dreams of a woman that was her but wasn’t, from which she would awaken with mysterious injuries. Then, Indy is afflicted with visions, inexplicable injuries, and what seem to be boughs of possession during the day and with witnesses. Frightened and left with few options, Indy decides it’s time to call an old friend and high priestess from her Wiccan days in hope of finding answers. She hasn’t seen anything like this before, but knows someone that might be able to help, and his name is Tomas.
Meanwhile, Father Dom comes from a line of gnostic priests charged with preventing the return of a demon vanished to the underworld thousands of years ago in Babylonia. He has just one chance to find and destroy the amulet before the demon’s servants can bring it to the portal and release him from his prison. Luckily, he has trained and indoctrinated a young priest named Tomas to complete this task. But will Tomas be able to go through with his task and save the world if it means he has to kill a witch whom he has sworn to protect. Can she really be evil when she seems so innocent? Are the feelings that he has begun to feel real, or is the long-ago past that has come back to haunt him merely a manipulation by a witch whose sole purpose is to release a demon that will destroy all of mankind?
Filled with tests of faith, challenges in ideology, romance, and mystery, Mark of the Witch does the whole past life/magic thing the right way. And I think we’ve all seen it done improperly before. Both parallel storylines are excellent, and the romance doesn’t feel rushed or forced with ‘why is this happening’ drama. Also, the witch and priest struggling with his belief system is hot, and Indira’s struggle with her faith and embracing her abilities and who she is empowering. The character’s played their parts perfectly; where the whole ‘world-building’ thing was lacking, they made up for it. Father Dom is the perfect old crazy religious zealot, hell-bent on getting what he wants in the name of ‘God’ and not really caring who he has to hurt…or kill…to get it. Rayne is the perfect combination of whimsical and confident, modern woman and I’d believe anything she told me to be true.
My only real criticism was that I wanted more information about Indira’s past life earlier on. If you’re like me and you like to have all the facts laid out for you, I’d suggest reading Legacy of the Witch (The Portal #0.5) before embarking on Mark of the Witch. I didn’t, and it isn’t necessary to get the whole story, but it is $1.99 and only like fifty pages. Thus, it may be worth checking out to see if the series is for you or not.
Or you can watch this cheesy video from when Mark of the Witch was nominated for the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Award in 2012: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J-znVZOQwiI