Burn Mark by Laura Powell

Release Date: 19th June, 2012

Publisher: Bloomsbury

Pages: 416pgs

The Story

Glory is from a family of witches. She is desperate to develop the 'Fae' and becomes a witch herself.

Lucas is the son of the Chief Prosecutor for the Inquisition and his privileged life is very different to the world of witches that he lives alongside.

And then on the same day, Glory and Lucas both develop the Fae. In one fell stroke, Glory and Lucas's lives are inextricably bound together, whether they like it or not . . .

The Review

A big thanks to the publisher on netGalley for accepting my request in reading this book early!

Glory has always wanted to be a witch like all of her other relatives have been and just when her wish finally comes true . . . she soon realizes becoming a witch isn't exactly what she thought it would be. As the Inquisition hunt down the unlicensed witches within the town and when the coven leader suddenly has their own plans laid out for you, life is more like a dangerous prison than a carefree one where your magic should be fun and be explored. But for the Inquisition's Chief Prosecutor's son, Lucas, he develops the gift known as the 'Fae', and not only does it mean a dangerous life for him but it also means when he and Glory come together as one, there are all sorts of consequences lying in their wake. More than they first realized.

When I first heard about this book that was mentioned through the website Goodreads, I was straight off WANTING this book mostly because of its very pretty cover (the powerful scene and the whole circle of fire thing really gets to me as a reader) and the amazing-sounding storyline which seem to offer something new and refreshing to the young adult genre compared to the many other cliche-witchy novels that I've read in the past. However, despite my better judgement, I'm not afraid to admit that I struggled a lot at the beginning of this book and I sometimes put myself off from reading the actual novel because of how much I struggled with it. But like in all book wars, I carried on with the reading of this book and trudged through this new witchy tale, and surprisingly, I came back with a not-so-bad result.

The storyline was interesting but the elements I really enjoyed were the main characters the book mainly focussed on, that being Glory and Lucas. They might not have been the sharpest of all characters that I've ever read before, but they were enjoyable nonetheless. Both of these main characters had their own part to play in the unfolding of the storyline and each other's lives eventually interwined together as well, which ended up creating a strong and a solid relationship between the two of them, and of which made me like this book even more. But while taking into account of my struggles with the book BURN MARK, while I liked these two main characters, but much like the storyline within itself, it took me a while to warm up to Glory and Lucas. With that said, I eventually came to liking them in the end so I'm pleased with that result.

Overall, while BURN MARK isn't exactly a huge 'page-turner' like I first expected it to be, but this novel has everything you like - and may even love - in a witchcrafty world. You have a modern-day set of witches, a backdrop of London which is always a personal favourite with me when it comes to reading about witches, it has a large group of people that controls witches, it has the perfect blends of mystery and treachery and honestly . . . despite my first thoughts on it being a sometimes slow-paced novel, however if you love all of those elements that I've mentioned above and when you combine them all together in a novel, you'll eventually come to love BURN MARK because it's well-written and contains a great amount of twists that you probably won't see coming you way!

The Rating

3/5 stars