Book Review: Blessed by a Demon's Mark by E.S. Moore

Blessed by a Demon's Mark
Author: E.S. Moore
Series: Kat Redding, book 3
Publisher: Kensington
ISBN-10: 0758268742
ISBN-13: 978-0758268747
Source: From publisher for review
Buy it here: Amazon | Book Depository
For more visit E.S. Moore's website

Reviewed by: Beth


Kat is back. She has been held up in the seemly normal town of Delai, learning how to control her hunger. That is until her demon mark starts acting up, and she needs to go back home and take care of business. There she learns that she has a new roommate. A vampire countess is out for her, and werewolf Adrian wants to see her.

I know how confusing that sounds. Blessed by a Demon’s Mark is the third book in the Kat Redding series. I strongly encourage readers to start at book one, To Walk the Night. If you haven’t opened the second book, Tainted Night, Tainted Blood there is a good chance Blessed by a Demon’s Mark will get confusing. This entry in the series is far from self-contained. Three plot lines are going on at once, but instead of hiding in the back ground, or ever tying into one another, they are spread out. Kat leaves one thing to jump into the other.

Let’s start with Delai. Readers from the second book know something is wrong with the town. We are pushed to believe that the town’s mojo is working on Kat, or else she would see what we see. The demon mark starts to hurt, signally the demon Beligral wants to speak with her. She starts to toy with the idea of going home, but has no real intention of it until Levi’s wife tells her to go. After she leaves, and much later sees to what the demon wants, she finds out what readers already knew about the crazy little town.

When Kat comes home she is in a bad mood. Before I always said she reminded me of Batman, now Kat is just angry. All the time angry, at everyone! Most of the story I spent shaking my head in frustration. Jonathan, the Luna cult leader, who has helped her in the past, and is (maybe) her love connection has asked a werewolf to live at her home, with Ethan, while she was away. That way someone is protecting him. Kat isn’t happy with the situation, and I won’t say why but Jonathan is a saint to deal with her. We also discover there are quite a few guys that maybe have the hot’s for her. I don’t really understand why.

The one plot line that seems to be more centralized is the countess who is after her. When Kat goes to deal with that situation, I felt much more at home with the character and enjoyed what was going on. It doesn’t stay that way long. This story bounces around a lot, with nothing getting cleared up in the end. I don’t mind when cliff hangers come around, but I usually want something tied up, even if it is a problem.

I didn’t mention the issue with Adrian, only because I don’t want to spoil anything. He does what he can to get an audience, but it doesn’t come around until near the end.

Kat starts off angry. By the end of the novel she has leveled out some, but not a whole lot. I was disappointed with this installment. The heroine’s mental instability made her feel dense. There are also emotions and connections that feel more than a little forced. Some of the gritty punch and classic Batman style self-loathing was lost in the over pour of emotions. It does level out before the end, but took a while.
My rating: