Review: Marked For Vengeance
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 03 19, 2013
I received a digital copy of this book from the author in return for an honest review.Marked For Vengeance is about Alyx, who is some sort of supernatural being called a Protector, and her experiences during her third lifetime as a human.  Her job while on Earth is to be in the vicinity of her Marked and protect him or her if necessary.It's an interesting idea, and I probably would have enjoyed reading more if the book hadn't been plagued with awkward sentence structure throughout and a much higher than average rate of homophone mistakes, as well as other incorrect words.  As the daughter of an English teacher, I tend to read with a mental red pencil at the ready, and to be hypercritical of mistakes.  Many people will not be bothered by the problems I noticed.Alyx has a stronger than normal (for her) attachment to her Marked during this lifetime and pays enough attention to him that she borders on stalking.  The major events of the story take place within a tight timeframe - maybe just a few days.  At the book's end, Alyx is uncertain if she's fulfilled her purpose as a Protector, and several other questions remain unanswered - the ones to which I'd most like the answers, honestly.Based on this first book, I'm not convinced there's enough compelling story material here to warrant a trilogy (as I understand it), though I'm willing to wait and see how the coming battle will play out.  Obviously, I'm not privy to the author's imagination, and there may be much more to this story than I think there is.There was a three-chapter sample of the second book at the end, which pretty much picks up where the initial story stops.  During the first three chapters, there's an awful lot of internal Alyx dialogue and exposition, more than necessary to move the story forward, in my opinion.Descriptions are vivid, and characters are easy to imagine as real people I might meet on the street.  I really like the friendship between Alyx and Cindra.  The entire premise is a unique take on Angels and the hierarchy of the Beings above us, so not the same-old, same-old.