Marked

Marked by Kristin and P.C. Cast, 2007 St. Martin's

     Zoey is just like any other sixteen-year-old high schooler; living in a suburb of Tulsa, Oklahoma, and dating her lifelong love the star of the football team, Heath. Life seems perfect. Until one day she begins to feel sick and passes out in the empty halls after school. A strange figure in the darkening world points at her, and when Zoey wakes up she has been Marked with the unfilled crescent moon of a vampyre fledgling.
     When Zoey goes home she is immediately blamed for her Change by her uber-religious parents and escapes to her grandmother's home rather than be taken to the anti-vampyre Elders of the People of Faith and whatever penance they may inflict. At her grandmother, Sylvia Redbird's lavender farm Zoey again passes out, but has a dream from the vampyre goddess Nyx giving her a particular mission. She encourages Zoey to remember that "Darkness does not always equate evil, Light does not always bring good."
     She awakens at the Tulsa House of Night, a boarding school where fledgling vampyres are mentored and surrounded by adult vampyres to help their bodies accept the Change. Zoey discovers that her mark has been filled in, unusual for a fledgling, and that she may change her name: she chooses her Cherokee Grandmother's maiden name becoming Zoey Redbird.
     Another fledgling, Aphrodite, takes Zoey to her room where she meets her new roommate and future best friend, Stevie Rae. She makes friends with Shaunee,  Erin, and Damien, friends of Stevie Rae's, and discovers Aphrodite has the power to see the future and is the High Priestess of the Dark Sons and Daughters, not to mention a stuck-up brat.
     Aphrodite and Zoey's new friends seem to be on opposite ends of a sort of feud, the elitist Dark Sons and Daughters on one end bullying the rest of the student population on the other. When Zoey is invited to join the group her friends encourage her to accept for insider information on the group. She does accept, but at the first ceremony Aphrodite gives Zoey fledgling blood in their wine, inciting a hunger strange for how powerful it is in such a young fledgling. Zoey flees, but finds her ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend trying to break her out. She loses control and bites Heath, creating an Imprint and scaring Kayla away. When Heath finally does leave Erik Night, a fifth-former and one of the most popular guys at the House of Night, comforts Zoey and walks her back to her dorm.
     The next morning the headmistress, Neferet, explains an Imprint and moves Zoey into an upper-level sociology class, marveling at how powerful she is. Zoey is chosen by a cat, who she names Nala, and discovers she has affinities for each of the five elements: Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Spirit--the first of any vampyre in history.  Her friends each have an affinity for one of the elements, too. At the Samhain celebration Zoey is invited back into the Dark Sons and Daughters and all goes according to plan, until Heath appears trying to take Zoey back. Aphrodite summons dark spirits who try to feast on his fresh blood, but Zoey, Stevie Rae, Erin, Shaunee, and Damien use their new-found abilities to save him.
     Neferet witnesses the entire debacle and transfers leadership of the Dark Sons and Daughters from Aphrodite to Zoey. Aphrodite is not pleased and threatens Zoey that it is not over. All appears to be going well and the new friends go about their lives without giving her claim much thought.
     Marked is the first in the House of Night Series and the first book co-written by the mother-daughter team: P.C. and Kristin Cast. It is written for a high-school audience, with some sexuality and language. The beginning of Zoey's journey is followed with the second novel: Betrayed.