Mark of the Witch - Maggie Shayne

Mark of the Witch - Maggie Shayne

This is book #1 in The Portal Series. There is a prequel for those interested, but I haven’t read it yet. This is going to be another on my list of ‘Must Read’ series’. From what I can tell this series will not be one where the main characters go from book to book. The series will be based on The Portal (hence the name of the series) appearing in each book.

The characters in the book are so life like it’s unreal. They grow and change as the plot forces them to face things in their lives they would rather not have. The trials that they go through are relative to the occurrences in the fantasy world, but are also mirrors of trials we go through in real life. Maggie definitely knows how to wield an awesome pen.

In this first book, Indira is a former Wiccan whose reason for the ‘former’ is that she has lost faith in the religion. She kept performing spells to provide her with her soul mate but never found him. When she was practicing she was a Solitary Witch, a witch who never formally joined a coven.

Indira has been having a recurring dream, but this morning when she wakes, the scars from the dream are real in the waking world. She seeks out her best friend, Rayne, who is a High Priestess for the local Wiccan coven. Rayne, fearing for her friend, contacts the one person she knows she can trust, her brother the Priest.

Tomas has been charged by God, and his mentor Dom, to prevent a demon from entering the world through a portal that opens once every 3500 years. It will happen this year. It will start with a witch, a marked witch, that will bring about the apocalypse and Tomas must stop her, must stop Indira.

Tomas tries to convince Indira that she is part of this calling, that she is the witch with the power to destroy the demon and seal him in the underworld forever. Not all goes as planned.

During their adventure Tomas and Indira discover they are reincarnations of the original witch and priest involved in the events leading to the portal creation 3500 years ago.

While I was reading the book, I kept thinking “I know what is going to happen next,” but this book is full of so many twists and turns that I was pleasantly surprised with every flip of the page. Everything was neatly tied up at the end of the book so I can’t wait until next month when Daughter of the Spellcaster is released.