Marked By Time

Marked By Time

By Victoria Basnuevo

A Four Star Rating

 

As a reader who enjoys a character driven story, Marked By Time was definitely right up my alley. This novel is a classic case of starting out slow and picking up momentum as the plot starts to unfold. While I feel like the pace in the beginning could have been faster the story as a whole outweighs that potential flaw. That saying, “Good things are worth waiting for,” applies to this story. If you can get past the first chapters you’ll be happy you didn’t put it down, because after that you WON’T be able to put it down. There is a good balance of action, coy romance, magic, unforeseen family situations, tragedy, and humor. It’s a novel that provokes a wide variety of emotional reaction, as the story triggered almost every imaginable feeling. The prominent emotional reaction for me was humor with the way that the two main characters, Skyler and Daris, quipped back and forth. It was a never ending battle of wits (which was clearly veiled flirting) that left me laughing out loud more than just a few times.

I will say that I wished the romantic elements in the story came to some sort of desirable fruition. I was disappointed that while it was clear feelings had developed, the characters in question seemed to tiptoe around them. It went as far as sitting on the edge of my seat thinking they are finally going to have a romantic moment that would move them past the “friend zone”, but then something would interrupt said moment and it would be lost. I found that particularly annoying, but that is more my preference than a flaw in the book. Now my biggest issue with the book was the ending. I understand that the immediate threat was…dealt with, but I flipped that last page and was upset because I felt like there would be more. Even went as far as to make sure that I hadn’t skipped a page. Nope that was really the end…dang! Was there a resolution, kind of, was there that satisfying glow I get at the end of a book, no. Technically it was a cliff hanger, and I do not like cliffhangers! Don’t do that to me! With that said it is clear in the ending that there will be another book which I will be buying immediately when it releases. There are too many questions I need answered to not!

Overall the charters are memorable and endearing. The writing and world building would rival that of Cassandra Clare’s first book City of Bones. That’s really saying something seeing how I adore that whole series. Marked By Time screams the start of a series that has the same success potential as the Immortal Instruments Series.