Mark of the Wicked by Georgia Bowers – 5 Star Book Review

A young witch tries to unravel the mystery of who is framing her for dark magic in Georgia Bowers’ creepy YA debut fantasy, Mark of the Wicked.

Welcome to one of the August 9th stops on the blog tour for Mark of the Wicked by Georgia Bowers with XPresso Book Tours. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for excerpt spotlights, reviews, author interviews, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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About the Book

Mark of the Wicked
by Georgia Bowers

Publishing 10 August 2021
Swoon Reads

Genre: YA Fantasy
Page Count: 352
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A young witch tries to unravel the mystery of who is framing her for dark magic in Georgia Bowers’ creepy YA debut fantasy, Mark of the Wicked.

Magic always leaves its mark.

All her life, Matilda has been told one thing about her magic: You use only when necessary. But Matilda isn’t interested in being a good witch. She wants revenge and popularity, and to live her life free of consequences, free of the scars that dark magic leaves on her face as a reminder of her misdeeds.

When a spell goes awry and the new boy at school catches her in the act, Matilda thinks her secret might be out. But far from being afraid, Oliver already knows about her magic – and he wants to learn more. As Oliver and Matilda grow closer, bizarre things begin to happen: Animals show up with their throats slashed and odd markings carved into their bodies, a young girl dies mysteriously, and everyone blames Matilda. But she isn’t responsible — at least, not that she can remember. As her magic begins to spin out of control, Matilda must decide for herself what makes a good witch, and discover the truth…before anyone else turns up dead.

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My Review

My Rating: 5 Stars
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I was granted eARC access to Mark of the Wicked via NetGalley as part of my participation in a blog tour for this title. Thank you to all involved in affording me this opportunity! My thoughts are my own and my review is honest.

In a version of our world where witches exist and those who hurt others with their spells are doomed to wear the names of their victims as scars on their faces forever, a teenaged witch with a rare concealment charm has many such nasty scars hidden beneath a painful glamour. When a handsome young male witch moves to her school and falls in love with her without the aid of a love potion, it seems like things are finally going right, but nothing is at it seems and Matilda’s life is about to get a whole lot more dangerous.

I loved this book! This is a fresh take on teenaged witches, and the plot had me on the edge of my seat with every turn of the page. Bowers writes such compelling, empathetic characters that I loved exactly who she wanted me to love, hated and suspected exactly who she wanted me to hate or suspect, and fell for every single red herring. Normally when I read YA books with mystery elements to them I report that I saw through everything misdirect as if it were a cozy mystery, but that’s not the case in this one. This book is full of so many twists and turns and I saw exactly one of them coming.

I’m sincerely baffled by the fact that the average rating on Goodreads at the time of writing this review is under 4.0 because this is a fantastic debut and far more complex than I’ve come to expect from YA these days. There is blood and gore and a whole lot of dark and borderline-dark magic going on, so I feel it would be best labelled as YA *Dark Fantasy, but it was all handled tastefully and nothing was unnecessary.

This book is full of failed and repaired relationships, coming-of-age hurdles, familial reconciliation, and found-family themes, and I love the combination. Add in the paranormal mystery aspect, and it’s gold.

Content Warnings: body horror, animal cruelty, dark magic

If you like magic, mystery, and explorations of the darker side of what it is to be human, this book is a must read!

About the Author

Georgia Bowers lives in Bedford, a small market town in England. When it was time to decide what to do with her life, she was obsessed with two things: books and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It seemed sensible to follow in the brogued footsteps of Rupert Giles, so she became a librarian, though sadly not the demon fighting kind. But there’s still time.

Ever since her mum told her that witches used to meet in the woods near their village, she’s been obsessed with witchcraft and the paranormal. When she was a teenager, a weekly habit of Point Horrors satisfied her thirst for chilling tales before she moved on to reading Stephen King. These days she likes to give her nerves a break every now and then with a good YA romance.

After completing a course in writing YA fiction she was a winner in the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Undiscovered Voices. Since then she has dabbled with stories of chosen ones and ghostly best friends until she conjured up the magical ingredients for her debut novel, Mark Of The Wicked.

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Giveaway Alert!

Tour-wide giveaway (INT): Print copy of Mark of the Wicked

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