Mark This Book Monday: House of Night Series!

New week, new day and new book(s) recommendation!


There's nothing like reading to learn, to have fun & laugh, to cry and to take you on fantastic journeys to faraway lands, real or not!


The House of Night series are a young adults series, and that should be a given since the main character is teenage girl, learning how to be a vampyre in the House of Night (aka Vampyre High).
And in case you are wondering, yes, the different spelling of the world vampyre is totally intentional. These are books about vampires, so if you are not keen on talks about night crawling, fangs and blood, these are not the books for you.




Vampires, young adult series... no, this is nothing like Twilight. Hey, I liked the Twilight books, I've watched all the movies so far, and will watch the two that are left, but I consider Twilight my guilty pleasure. These books are different, they do portray vampyres & vampyre society in a very different way than other vampires series (like the Southern Vampires series aka True Blood), and one point that made me fall in love with the general idea behind this books: vampyres are a matriarchal society! Also, the female main character(s) (and not in the lady in distress kinda way) and a fast writing style that makes you read two books in one night (true story, I did!).


The series start with Zoey Redbird, a teenager whose bigger problem is her geometry exam and her boyfriend's tendency to overindulge in binge drinking, till she is Marked as a vampyre. Biggest difference from any other vampire book out there, the possibility of being a vampyre is latent in all humans, as part of some junk DNA strand, but it's only triggered in some humans during the crazy hormone revolution that is puberty. Vampyre Trackers can find those humans and mark them as fledglings or vampyres to be, if they live through the 4 years that the Change into vampyres take, and not all of them make it. No biting to death and blaming your maker for it. In the House of Night series, vampyres are part of the world and accepted (more or less) by society, and once a human teenager is marked as a fledgling, they have to leave for their nearest House of Night for protection & training & education, but just like in any other boarding school, they can keep in touch with their families and friends if so they wish.


Zoey is part Cherokee on her mother side, and one of my fave characters in the books is her Grandma, Sylvia Redbird, a wonderful medicine woman, and the only real family that Zoey can relate to. There are lots of Cherokee mythology references during the books, as well as many pagan & Wiccan & even Celtic ones in later books, and that definitely increases my enjoyment of this series, I'm really fond of pagan mythology for an atheist! As with all books, there's a fight of Good & Bad, Light & Dark, and not only as opposing forces, but also as part of ourselves, and how our choices make us what we are, and that is valuable lesson we all should be reminded of now and then.


There are 8 books so far: Marked, Betrayed, Chosen, Untamed, Hunted, Tempted, Burned & Awakened. According to the Wikipedia page (if you want more info about the books, go there, very complete!) there are a total of 12 planned, the next being Destined, due in November 2011, and I for one, can't wait!