Eve of Darkness (Marked, Book 1) [Mass Market Paperback]

S.J. Day (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 28, 2009

Cursed by God, hunted by demons, desired by Cain and Abel... All in a day's work.

For Evangeline Hollis, a long ago fling with a bad boy from the wrong side of the tracks just became a disaster of biblical proportions. One night with a leather-clad man of mystery has led to a divine punishment: the Mark of Cain.

Thrust into a world where sinners are drafted into service to kill demons, Eve’s learning curve is short. A longtime agnostic, she begrudgingly maneuvers through a celestial bureaucracy where she is a valuable but ill-treated pawn. She’s also become the latest point of contention in the oldest case of sibling rivalry in history...

But she’ll worry about all that later. Right now she’s more concerned with learning to kill while staying alive. And saving the soul she’d never believed she had.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Exhilarating adventure in an edgy world of angels and demons highlights the opener of Day's Marked trilogy. After a steamy encounter in a stairwell, Evangeline Hollis discovers that she has been branded with the Mark of Cain, unfairly punished because of a man's attraction to her. She is now a Mark: a celestial bounty hunter charged with sending rogue demons and other Infernals back to hell. Agnostic Eve feels trapped and wants to leave the firm, but that requires the aid of the most famous brothers in history: Alec Cain, God's top Mark and Eve's former lover, and Reed Abel, who assigns her bounties. Dynamic and vibrant, Eve is an impressive protagonist, and her fierce spirit and determination to make the best of her circumstances will keep readers enthralled. (May)
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Review

"Exhilarating adventure in an edgy world of angels and demons highlights the opener of Day’s Marked trilogy. Dynamic and vibrant, Eve is an impressive protagonist, and her fierce spirit and determination to make the best of her circumstances will keep readers enthralled."--Publishers Weekly

"Day, aka multitalented author Sylvia Day, explodes onto the urban fantasy scene with a new twist on the Cain and Abel story. It’s dark, gritty and sexy to the max, so readers can be thankful the next chapter in this pulse-pounding series is only a month away!"--Romantic Times BOOKreviews

"Great characters and terrific storytelling in a hot-blooded adrenaline ride. A keep-you-up-all-night read."--Patricia Briggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Eve of Darkness is a sizzling, heart-pounding urban fantasy that thrilled and fascinated me from beginning to end. Eve is a smart, spirited heroine I won’t soon forget!"--Jeri Smith-Ready, award-winning author of Wicked Game and Bad to the Bone

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Tor Books; First Edition edition (April 28, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0765360411
• ISBN-13: 978-0765360410
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (27 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #936,252 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

S. J. DAY's resume includes a variety of odd jobs ranging from amusement park employee to Russian linguist/interrogator for the U.S. Army Military Intelligence. She's presently a full-time writer. A native Southern Californian, S.J. thinks there's no place like home, but she loves to travel. Her adventures have taken her to Japan, Holland, Germany, France, Mexico, Jamaica, and all over the United States.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Promising start to a new series! (not trilogy, as I previously thought), April 28, 2009

By 

Kelly (Fantasy Literature) (Columbia, MO United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Eve of Darkness (Marked, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

Welcome to S.J. Day's California, where demons walk among us, unbeknownst to all but a few chosen souls. These chosen souls are the "Marks," so named because they bear the Mark of Cain. Personally recruited by God to serve as demon-hunting enforcers, they gain superhuman powers and a chance to expiate their sins. The oldest, baddest mark is Cain himself. He's still a rebel with a distaste for rules, and he still doesn't get along with that brother of his.

Our heroine, Evangeline "Eve" Hollis, finds herself thrust unexpectedly into the life of a Mark after a hot elevator interlude with a man who reminds her eerily of her first love, Alec Cain. (Guess who.) Eve of Darkness follows Eve as she adjusts to her new powers, learns to navigate the world of celestial and infernal politics, and wrestles with feelings for both Cain and Abel.

Eve is an interesting character in a subgenre where heroines often seem cookie-cutter. She's not a complete loner, for starters -- she has a complicated relationship with her parents and a warm, sweet friendship with an elderly widow in her building. She also seems very realistic in her initial reactions to the changes in her life. Rather than suddenly transforming into a hard-edged warrior, she is reluctant to embrace this new existence, and would rather just get on with her interior design career until she realizes there's no going back. She also is able to think outside the box at times and come up with unconventional solutions to problems.

S.J. Day has obviously done her research into the lore she is using. The moment where her hard work really became evident to me was in the scene with the lilin. I've seen variations on lilin in several urban fantasies, but how many authors incorporate the legend that a hundred lilin die every day, and work that into the characterization?

Pacing is a little odd. The early chapters of the book are very steamy, and most of the non-sex action deals with a serial-killing water demon who is stalking Eve. Another plot is also building during this time, involving demons who've found a way to hide their nature from Marks, but this plot doesn't really pick up until later in the book. When it does become a major plot, it explodes into something very big and very complex, and suddenly there are werewolf families and mages and animal mutilations and byzantine double-crossings, and seemingly-important characters introduced pretty late in the story. I was sometimes confused. It felt, if this makes any sense, like the sex plot was a little too "front-loaded" and the action plot a little too "back-loaded." It felt like two separate episodes of Eve's story rather than two threads braided together. Also, and I admit this is a very silly peeve, but I don't like the convention of using the word "wolf" to refer to a werewolf when the creature is in human form. It always makes me picture the four-footed variety and throws me out of the story.

Then again, maybe it's premature to make a judgment about the pacing. Eve of Darkness and its sequels, Eve of Destruction (Marked, Book 2) and Eve of Chaos (Marked, Book 3), are scheduled to come out within a few short months, and it's clear that they're meant to be read in rapid succession. (Evidence: The first chapter of Eve of Darkness is actually a cliffhanger for Eve of Destruction.) Perhaps after reading all three, the overall "flow" of the series will be more clear.

S.J. Day has created a unique world, and it has many secrets that have yet to be revealed. I'm especially interested in finding out what sets Eve apart; there are hints that there is something unusual about her that caused her to be chosen in the first place. I'm also interested in the intricacies of angelic politics and what the various angels' agendas and plots are. I look forward to seeing where this goes.

If I didn't make it clear above, readers should be advised that there is a great deal of sex in Eve of Darkness! Depending on whether you're a member of the "Yay, Fantasy with Sex!" club or the "Get This Stinkin' Sex Out of My Fantasy" club, your mileage may vary.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic first installment, April 29, 2009

By 

P. Ramirez "Em18966" (Somewhere in Utah) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Eve of Darkness (Marked, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

So, I have always been one of those people who buys books at random. If I see it and it looks even remotely appealing, I generally end up with a copy. That is what happened with my newest acquisition, "Eve of Darkness." It just stared me down from the shelf, its sweet cover-art refusing to allow me to look away. And when I read the back cover and discovered that it was the first book in a new series, and that the next two books would be released by July, I was sold.

The premise of the book was pretty compelling. I mean, there are a lot of `supernatural' books out there today. It seems like everyone and their dog is jumping on the bandwagon, writing books about demons and werewolves and vampires and faeries. Now don't get me wrong, I love the majority of those books. But this series is about Angels and other main players in the bible. How original is that?
The books center around a woman named Evangeline (Eve) and a stairwell tryst that results in her being punished with the mark of Cain. Cain also happens to be the last name of Eve's first love, who took her virginity and left without a trace a decade earlier. Of course, the story wouldn't be complete without Cain's brother. And Abel is alive and well in this book. In fact, he was the one trysting with Eve in the stairwell. And the one who did the marking. Nefarious.

Being marked initiates a change that gives Eve super-human senses, makes her impervious to the effects of mind-altering substances, and (for some reason) makes her hornier than a person has a right to be. Lucky for her Cain swoops in to facilitate her life-change. Once the change is complete, it is he who advises Eve that the marked are pretty much the assassins of the angels. (That is the short description.) And that she must now spend her life hunting down and killing Infernals (the various and assorted demons and other such damned that roam the earth.)

The book actually started off weird for me, because it felt like you were walking into the middle of something. But, the pacing quickly reasons itself out, and the story flows really well. It was a very well written first installment for the series, answering the questions that needed immediate answering as well as leaving enough unfinished to leave you wishing you could start on the next book. Fortunately, the next book comes out in June, so the wait won't be too excruciating. (Come on, I know for a fact that I am not the only one who has been waiting impatiently for the next Laurell K. Hamilton book for a freaking year!!)

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by both the quality of the plot and the dimension of the character dev elopement. I would recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a breath of fresh air in a played-out genre. I easily give this book 4 stars.

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I was looking for, May 20, 2009

By 

D. M. Domini "D. M. Domini" (Chicagoland) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Eve of Darkness (Marked, Book 1) (Mass Market Paperback)

I'm not sure why I keep browsing the urban fantasy; I keep being dissapointed. Jim Butcher is about the only one I keep consistantly liking...I'm not sure what the heck the Anita Blake series did, Sookie Stackhouse seems to be meandering, and I couldn't get into Armstrong's books, Harrison's books, or Caine's books. (Actually, with Caine I binged on the sugar-lightness and then utterly burned out on book five or something.) Patricia Brigg's novels are solid enough, but they don't have the zing either. Perhaps what I'm looking for isn't being written.

I couldn't really get my heart around this one; it has all the "required" bits...heroine in fast-paced career, hot guys, sex, action...and the magic system has some thought behind it, it's a very interesting twist on the whole Christian mythos (no insult intended to those christians reading this). But I found the sex repetative and boring--it's just not subtle at all. It's not romantic. It seemed like a bunch of pointless rutting to me. The guys were cover-model hot but not very deep (to me at least). The opening scene is never resolved at the end of the book, we never get back to the dragon or see what happens at the game.

Writing-wise, the book didn't have any other obvious flaws...it seemed square and novel-shaped. Technically competent. But it didn't really suck me in. It didn't have that *pull*, it didn't give me that fascination I get when reading a really really good book. And I was hoping it would have.

Oh well.