S.J. Day

Marked — (2009) Publisher: 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 to kill demons, Eve knows her learning curve must be 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 quite believed she had.

Eve of Darkness

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 and Eve of Chaos, are scheduled to come out in consecutive 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. —Kelly Lasiter

Eve of Destruction: She's tough, she's sexy, but best of all, she's smart.

It's not every day that a trilogy's second installment is better than the first, but S.J. Day has done it.

Eve of Destruction continues the story of Evangeline "Eve" Hollis and her adventures as a "Mark," a sinner drafted into God's demon-hunting army. Eve isn't a typical Mark, and this becomes clearer in this volume as more Marks are introduced to the reader. In some ways, Eve has it easier than her colleagues; she still has a relationship with her family, and she's dating Cain, the most elite Mark of all. In other ways, she has it harder. She's going through metaphysical changes at an unprecedented rate, and her connections to Cain and Abel have put her on the radar of the top baddies. The strangeness of Eve being Marked at all is also increasingly evident in Eve of Destruction. Most of Eve's fellow Marks were murderers before being chosen. All Eve did was fall for a hot guy on a motorcycle. The question of why Eve was chosen is one of the central mysteries here, and I can't wait to find out the answer.

Eve, still recovering from the events of Eve of Darkness, is assigned to attend a training exercise at a defunct military base, along with a group of other newly minted Marks. The recruits think this is going to be like Survivor — challenges, alliances, backstabbing... Instead they find themselves fighting for their literal survival when a demon infiltrates the team and starts picking off Marks. Meanwhile, Cain is hunting the alpha werewolf we met in Eve of Darkness, and Abel is investigating a new type of demon. These plotlines all turn out to be connected, and Day does a great job of weaving them together and bringing them to an adrenaline-filled climax.

New complications arise in Eve's love life, too. One metaphysical event causes her to grow closer to Abel, and another metaphysical event distances her from Cain, adding tension to their love triangle. Over the last few years, I've become wary of urban fantasy plots that heavily mix sex and magic. I think it's because many authors would stretch a situation like this into a twenty-volume soap opera. Given that this appears to be a self-contained trilogy, though, my gut tells me that Day is going to bring the love triangle to a real resolution in book 3, either through Eve making a choice or through character death. (I just hope she ends up with the one I like better!) Day is also better than most at writing the steamy stuff.

Now, for what I loved most about this book. In Eve of Darkness, Eve vanquishes one of the baddies by thinking outside the box and using her creativity. I'm happy to report that this is no fluke. Eve's resourcefulness continues in Eve of Destruction. It's incredibly refreshing: Eve's greatest weapon isn't her gun, her magic, her 'tude, or her sexuality. It's her brain. She gets underestimated a lot, due to her inexperience, but it usually turns out that she's thinking circles around the other characters. The third-person POV, unusual in urban fantasy, helps facilitate this. It allows Eve to deduce things without tipping off a reader who's missed the clues. She was definitely a few steps ahead of me at one point!

Also refreshing (and I neglected to mention this in my review of Eve of Darkness) is the diversity. Day's characters, both human and supernatural, come from a variety of backgrounds. This is something that's all too rare in fantasy.

And I just have to say, it's so cute and telling that Abel's ringtone is "Jessie's Girl." —Kelly Lasiter