Apocalyptic settings, Angels, Demons… I AM IN! Unfortunately it took me a couple of years before I got around to start this book and in those years, I found that my reading preferences have changed a bit. Due to how much I’ve read, it’s often difficult to define a new read as special anymore. That isn’t a bad thing perse, because there’s definitely still a lot that I still enjoy reading, and find entertaining. But on the other hand, you automatically become more of a critic in some regards which was happening when reading this book too.

It definitely has some likeable elements and it has potential, but it was overall for me not a truly outstanding story and writing style. I did enjoy it, found it entertaining but nothing more for me alas. But I’d definitely recommend picking it up if you’re interested in it, because it could be your next favorite read, who knows!

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this book. Unfortunately, while the blurb really interested me, I have been unable to get into the book.

At first I thought am going to enjoy this book. I honestly liked the idea of the book. It has mix of devil, vampires, warlocks on it. But then the down hill of this is the main character. She was really immature in my opinion.

A Mark Unwilling (The Reckoning #1) by Candace Wondrak is an urban fantasy with a lot of potential. In short, before Lexa was born her parents sold her soul to the devil for money and power. She's now somewhere in the middle of the angels, demons, and the old gods during the apocalypse and when the demon (not at all like what she expected) who owns her soul comes to collect she knows it will not end well. However, her demonic Mark makes her pretty much invincible, so nothing better get in her way. Anyway, it sounded really cool and it was a quick read, but there were so many things that could have been better looking back on it. Firstly, I would have liked to have known a little more about the world Lexa lives in, particularly how all of the biblical figures and mythological characters coincide together since that's never really mentioned. Secondly, characterizations - I like Lexa's well developed sense of sarcasm, but she's absurdly reckless even if her Mark makes her immune and unfortunately the majority of the rest of the cast is too flat for my liking. Thirdly, I know I read an ARC but there were quite a few typos sprinkled throughout that took me out of the story. Finally, Candace Wondrak's A Mark Unwilling has the potential to be a great new Supernatural-esque urban fantasy novel, but although the plot is intriguing the book never quite lives up to that potential.

A Mark Unwilling by Candace Wondrak was, for lack of a better word, kind of crazy. It follows Lexa, a girl whose parents literally sold her soul in exchange for money before she was even born. Some people just shouldn't be parents right? When the 4 horsemen of the Apocolypse are summoned to the earth by a mysterious cult, Lexa seems to be connected to them through whatever demon owns her soul. So basically, it is quite literally the end of the world and Lexa bands together with a rag-tag group of people, including a warlock, vampires, and more, to try and figure out if there is even a way to stop it.

Guys this book was pretty entertaining. It didn't really feel serious at all, considering the topics. It honestly felt more comedic and unrealistic. Lexa is extremely sarcastic and has a dry sense of humor that leads me to believe she doesn't take her situation seriously. And with her constantly making light of situations the whole narrative feels like its a joke. (If that makes sense.)  

Lexa is incredibly reckless with an act now think later attitude. This is because she actually can't die. the demon who owns her needs her alive ergo she can't die. This trait is admirable because she throws herself in harms way without a second thought in order to protect those she cares about. A demon may own her soul, but that doesn't mean she isn't a great person.

A Mark Unwilling is perfect for fans of Supernatural or Buffy. It is also a quick October read, lots of gross gorey spooky vibes, awesome for Halloween.

I received this book through NetGalley.com in exchange for an honest review.

What is this book about?
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Her soul was sold to a powerful demon so her parents could live in luxury for the rest of their natural lives. Her demon is coming for her (and that's all I know coz I didn't finish this book).

Why I didn't finish this book
------------------------------
Books that allow my imagination to fill in gaps, to work hard to build the Worlds in which stories are set, are my favourite. There was no way for my imagination to be exercised because of many of the technical issues with the writing. I grew frustrated because I thought the premise of the story was interesting and I wanted to know what happened next, but I couldn't get past my frustrations. The MC was incredibly unlikeable as were the posse she collected around her to help her on her quest (except Deb).

Here are some of the issues that made me abandon the book.
1. Misuse of the word snowflake. I don't think it means what the author thought it meant. There's another that I didn't mark down.
2. Over describing what the cat was doing. Maybe it had a huge role to play later in the novel but it seemed unnecessary and drew me away from the story being told.
3. Solidifying the MC's character as a carefree rebel who doesn't do as she's told was overwrought. She purposely put herself in harm's way to save strangers but there was no indication that that was her nature (except for the wrongly used "snowflake" description). I wasn't convinced that she was the bleeding heart her actions made her out to be.
4. The reaction to the events at her parents' house was... meh. I had no emotional reaction to it AT ALL because the MC's was so unnatural for someone who feels things keenly.
5. Too much telling. Don't tell me the oatmeal was gross, show me. I'm not a hardliner on this "show-don't-tell" business, but there was a little too much.
6. Sometimes the way the scene was being described seemed haphazard. It felt so disjointed, one thought being interrupted by scene description, then picking up the thought again in a new paragraph.
7. I got the sense that Agent Awesome was this one particular guy. I have a picture of this warm character in a lumberjack outfit, then, BAM, I get hit with "he's middle-aged". Whaaaaaa? Maybe "middle-aged" is too vague because I'm picturing someone in their 50s, close to retirement, wrinkly and tired, ready to let go. The middle-aged FBI agent who the MC is lusting after was a hard sell.
8. Darren. He and the MC becoming friends would have been such an interesting story if there were hints to it. Maybe those are in the character development notes.
9. The final straw was the MC describing herself. towards the end of Chapter 4.

"I use sarcasm as a defence mechanism, to diffuse otherwise awkward or difficult situations. I wouldn't need sarcasm as much if it weren't for the mark."

No. Just, no. I guess I can see that being great for character development, but it shouldn't have made it to the book.

Yeah or Nay
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A definite nay, even though I can imagine the potential this story could have had. If it were to be re-written to address some of the issues I've highlighted, I think I'd tackle it again.

This book started off so promising. Parents exchanging their baby's soul, to a demon, for cash? Is it worth it to be rich? I'm sure a lot of people would do that. How horrible. I was really interested but this book was kind of hot mess. We start with Lexa in college and her mark starting to burn and itch. Signs that the end is near, her master is coming for her. 

Now, I liked Lexa because she's really snarky and has some funny one-liners. At the same time, she's supposed to be in her 20's but acted like she was in her teens. Sometimes her sassy-ness started to become really forced. She then starts to act and think later. She rushes into these horrible situations without thinking. 

All of the characters seem really one-dimensional. I wished we could have had way more depth because some of them seemed really promising. I also didn't get much of the world building. I'm not going to lie, I was really confused a lot of the time. Things didn't really make sense and the plot just had huge holes in it. There would be something going on and then we are somewhere else completely. It took me a minute to actually realize what the heck was going on! 

This girl is in college all normal and then everything changes in a day. Yet, she knows about Warlocks and demons but doesn't believe in anything else. She doesn't believe that Angels exist and all these other supernatural beings. How far-fetched is it to believe in warlocks, vampires and demons but not the underworld, angels and so on. Anyways, these are just some of the things that I found confusing. The author also brings in Greek characters, like Hades and then Gabriel, from the Bible. There is no explanation how or why. This is where the world building was just lacking and confusing. Cool concept but a little more expansion there would be nice. 

I usually don't really comment on typos and errors with e-ARC's but this one was bad. There were so many spacing issues and typos that it really slowed my reading down. 

Overall, this was such an interesting idea and I really wanted to love it but it just didn't do it for me. The execution was just lacking. I really don't think I will be picking up the next book. Even though, this one left off in a cliffhanger. 

Thank you, to NetGalley and the publisher (Independently Published) for providing me with an e-ARC of this book! 

#NetGalley #AMarkUnwilling

Reminiscent of the Hunger Games, this book takes challenges to the next level. With an accessible writing style and a clever plot, there is not a single thing that is unappealing. It also includes diversity which honestly compounds the brilliance!

It is the end of the world. A Demon owns her soul. But you will never believe who the Demon is...
This was a short book and a quick read. I read it in one sitting. I like the aspect of a Demon owning some ones soul because her parents sold it. It is something I haven't really seen in any other books I have read. Love the friendships that are made quickly at the end of the world. There was some plot twists that I wasn't expecting to be honest. There is so much action in this book even though is only around 200 pages.

The premise/cover sucked me in and made me interested in this story but, unfortunately, I'm unable to continue. I'm not sure if maybe my file was messed up but this whole thing was inundated with poor spelling, paragraph breaks, and grammar. It honestly read like someone wrote a story and put it online without any sort of editing process whatsoever.

The story itself was super intriguing and I really did love most of the side characters but the MC was just flat out annoying. What should have been confidence was arrogance. What should have been savior was special snowflake. Every word out of her mouth was saturated with sarcasm and snark to the point that it was no longer funny nor entertaining. She was trying to do too much, be too much, impress too much. The author definitely needed to tone her down a bit because she didn't read like a good character but more like a caricature.

The pacing of the story was also really weird as well. When I say it went from 0 to 60, it went from 0 to 60. Within the first 100 or so pages, 3 of the 4 horseman had risen. I'm all for a fast paced story but it just felt rushed to me. Also, I refuse to believe that an FBI agent would act in the way that the one in this book did. I honestly can't even remember his name. He was cowardly, teenage-ry, and just...really immature considering he's supposed to be this badass FBI agent.

Not to mention there was too many wink-wink-nudge-nudge mentions of certain popular media/books/fandoms/etc. that will date the heck out of this book. At one point, the MC mentions Kim Harrison, a pretty well known author who writes urban fantasy, and it just felt very try hard-y to me because it was quite obvious that this book was trying to be like Harrison's The Hollows series.

I really enjoyed the story here. Lexa's soul was sold to a demon as a baby by her parents. They made a ton of money and all she had to do was give her life to a demon. Yea, not so easy. Her parents didn't sell her to a regular demon. The apocalypse starts and she knows she's screwed. I really think the author is sitting on a gold mine. The editing in this book was awful. I'm not even sure the author had one. Also, there are incredible scenes that take place in the book and we get very little detail on them. There is over describing scenes in some books. This book definitely is the opposite. We get one sentence to describe some scenes. The story is great. The characters I really enjoyed BUT it could be so much more. I am gonna read the next in the series because I want to know what happens. I hope the author edits the crap out of this book to make it as great as I think it could be.

Thank you to Candace Wondrak for allowing me to read this book, the plot had me hooked from the beginning. I loved the humour of the main character as I am also fluent in sarcasm (its a problem). However, I mad the mistake of forcing myself to read this whilst in a reading slump :(

Whilst I enjoyed her humour I also found my self getting slightly annoyed with how she was portrayed but this is entirely my fault as i find 'oh woh is my life but I just don't care about anything anymore' annoying in books but know that others enjoy watching the character progress.

I really enjoyed reading it. Lexa is an interesting character. I like the story idea. It was a quick and enjoyable read for me.

I was not able to download it to kindle. I tried multiple times but it wouldn't work. Its worked with all my other books from net galley but this one won't.

I enjoyed this premise so much! There are vampires, horseman, marks, all sorts of different creatures happening and the stakes are incredibly high.

I would love to see some editing happen here and beta readers involved because there is so much of the writing that needs to be slowed down. The author has a wonderful idea and the story has a great deal of potential, however I feel like there was too much summary and more telling rather than showing. We have a character facing major events and watching these men with crosses on their heads kills themselves in the streets, but we only get one sentence about this. These scenes would be so much more effective if they are slowed down. What do these people look like? How does our MC feel? Why should I be invested in her other than she's a bit witty?

I would also like to see more world building. Creatures are mentioned casually but we also have a ton of Biblical references so I needed to see some rules for the world that we're now in.

I'd love to recommend this book if another pass is done, and these scenes are slowed down. It's such a great idea and I want to get behind it but right now I'm unable to do so.

At first I was really, really enjoying this book, it's quite fast paced, gets right in to the action with lots of things constantly happening... and it never seems to stop, as bad as this sounds I quite like having a lull in a book where you feel as though the characters are safe and then something happens. With this book, there's everything on every page! It would be a good book for people who love that sort of thing but for some reason I just couldn't get in to it... the characters are great and have some dry humour going for them, I just couldn't keep up with the pace of the book, made me feel too tense! ARC received in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley

I received this ARC via Net Galley for an honest review.

I DNF this book. Within the first chapter of the book I found that I did not like the writing style of the book and it was not what I had expected. It was simply a matter of the book was not for me. There was something about the main character that I did not quite like. So much so that I realized it right away when I read the book. I think if the book had been from third person I would have made it further into the book. I am going to be honest I only made it through like two chapters before giving up. It was just not something I could see myself continuing to read unfortunately.

This book is an odd combination of elements that you wouldn't think could work together but do. The first element is Lexi's parents sell her soul to a demon before she is even born. The second element is the beginning of the apocalypse. The third element is Greek mythology. Last but not least, you have vampires and warlocks and cults. Even though this seems like a weird combination of elements, the author wove them together so well. I loved it and already preordered the second book from Amazon!

4/5 stars! I didn't expect to like this book as much as I did. From reading the description, I thiught it would be worth a shot to read and seemed lile it could be entertaining. Surpassed all my expectation. I really had a fun time reading this today, and time passed by so fast that I was done with this book in 5 hours time due to not being able to put it down. I actually found myself giggling and chuckling out loud at times too, Which surprised me as it's very difficult for a book to do that to me. I loved how snarky and witty Lexa is. I loved how her relationships formed and how she didn't become a cliche "someone please save me" character. I actually enjoyed the fast pacing of the story, with some much needed rest in between scenes, although some felt quite long and too drawn out. I was skeptical when that one *special* character was going to come into play, as I felt that could make or break the experience I was having. I thought the author made this character perfectly, not making me dislike the book. I had so much fun reading this. There are a few problems in the ebook that were annoying, such as words being squished together (likethis) or there being a new line started with a single word (Like
This). However, I feel this is more a fault in the editor and publisher, but it does become a distraction at times. I really enjoyed this, and I will definitely need to buy this book myself, as I can see myself coming back to this for a fun read. I can't wait to be able to read the next book! I say this is a fun read for anyone.

I received this ARC for free by NetGalley in exchange for my completely honest review.

I received an arc in exchange for an honest review, a huge thank you to NetGalley!

Okay, so this book has hopefully went through a major reread with a betareader or the author. Words were not misspelled just running together (ie. horriblydistracting).

That being said, this was a quick paranormal/urban fantasy read that left me needing MORE ANSWERS #ibeg

The book begins with the information that Lexa's parents sold her soul for wordly possessions: house, money, career, yada yada. Which is pretty low, you know for parents, who are suppose to LOVE YOU. Plus, her parents acted weirdly concerned throughout the book whenever she ran into danger ... I found it a bit contradictory. Maybe they had regrets, I wouldn't forgive them if they did.

Lexa is snarky and feisty and doesn't go down without a fight, none of her comebacks made me smile the way snarky comebacks usually do ... they just felt mildly forced. Who I did love is, Cloud (Vampire Coven Leader), David (Warlock Best Friend) and Mike (Unknown motivations for sticking around, FBI agent).

Cloud: "I've met wittier"
Lexa: "Did a Vampire just insult me?"
Mike: "Yes."
Lexa: "And the vampire did it well?"
Mike: "He did."
Lexa: "Now's the time for a swearword, Mike"
Mike: "Damn"

So much happens in this book: vampires, gods, angels, the four horsemen, the Apopcalypse, MONSTERS. But it all blended really well and kept my interest until the end. I think this is a series finding its feet and I can't wait to read the sequel!