A Crooked Mark asks the line between truth and fantasy. Between a convincing lie and a crime. This one is perfect for fans of books where you aren’t really sure even at the end. Keep reading this book review of A Crooked Mark.
Summary
Rae Winter should be dead.
Some say that walking away from the car crash that killed her dad is a miracle, but seventeen-year-old Matthew Watts knows that the forces of Good aren’t the only ones at work. The devil, Lucifer himself, can mark a soul about to pass on, sending it back to the land of the living to carry out his evil will.
Matt has grown up skipping from town to town alongside his father hunting anyone who has this mark. They have one Find these people, and exterminate them.
After helping his father for years, Matt takes on his own Rae Winter, miracle survivor. But when Matt starts to fall for Rae, to make friends for the first time in his life, he’s not sure who or what to believe anymore. How can someone like Rae, someone who is thoughtful and smart and kind, be an agent of the devil? With the lines of reality and fantasy, myth and paranoia blurred, Matt confronts an awful truth….
What if the devil’s mark doesn’t exist?
Review
(Disclaimer: I received this book from the author. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)
A Crooked Mark begins with wondering what happens when we fall for the person whose soul we are supposed to end. It’s the epitome of falling for the enemy. But what I wasn’t expecting from A Crooked Mark was a mind twisty story about truth and perception. To wonder if the devil’s mark doesn’t exist. If his dad is lying to him, if the accidents are simply so, and what is he seeing then? What if he got it wrong?
It’s a story which doesn’t allow for easy answers. What would happen if we thought there was an easy way to get what we want even if we knew it was wrong? If we weren’t sure? In that way, A Crooked Mark pokes at loss, family complexity, and lies. What would we be willing to do for the easy answers? At the core of this story about unreliability and what is true is a story about protecting the people we love.
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Find A Crooked Mark on Goodreads, Storygraph, Amazon, Bookshop.org, & Blackwells.