Marked by Sarah Fine

I received this book for free from ARC in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

In a broken landscape carved by environmental collapse, Boston paramedic Cacia Ferry risks life and limb on the front lines of a fragile and dangerous city. What most don’t know—including her sexy new partner, Eli Margolis—is that while Cacy works to save lives, she has another job ferrying the dead to the Afterlife. Once humans are “Marked” by Fate, the powerful Ferrys are called to escort the vulnerable souls to either eternal bliss or unending fire and pain.

Unaware of Cacy’s other life, Eli finds himself as mesmerized by his fierce and beautiful partner as he is mistrustful of the influential Ferry clan led by the Charon—who happens to be Cacy’s father. Cacy, in turn, can no longer deny her intense attraction to the mysterious ex-Ranger with a haunted past. But just as their relationship heats up, an apparent hit takes the Charon before his time. Shaken to the core, Cacy pursues the rogue element who has seized the reins of fate, only to discover that Eli has a devastating secret of his own. Not knowing whom to trust, what will Cacy have to sacrifice to protect Eli—and to make sure humanity’s future is secure?

Sarah Fine is one of my all time favorite authors. She has this amazing gift with world building and believable characters and her plots are original, captivating and just plain good to be honest. So it comes as no shock that when I discovered she was releasing an adult urban fantasy novel I squealed way too loud and did a happy dance.

I mean this is the woman who brought me Malachi and a hell so real I legit was afraid for a sec. How could I NOT love it?! What kind of blow to the head would lead to such an unfortunate feeling?! So I sent a request off to Amazon (whom never approves me but I DIDN’T CARE) and less than 24 hours later I had an approval and had dived right in. In fact I stayed up till a little after 4 am reading as much as I could even though I knew I had to get up for work at 6am. And you know what?

Fine has created another world that instantly sucks you in and surrounds you with it’s realism. The synopsis says:

In a broken landscape carved by environmental collapse

Intriguing right? Sounds kind of cool yes? Well UNDERSTATEMENT ALERT! The book is placed in a world where “environmental collapse” has left some places completely barren, others flooded with horribly polluted water; think Venice but not as pretty, fun and if you fall in the water you die. I was so wrapped up in the landscape of the story and all I kept thinking was OH MY GOSH FINE IS PSYCHIC AND THIS IS OUR FUTURE. I mean there is no way she could have just “thought” all of this up! From the barren desert like landscape of PITTSBURGH Eli referenced, to the flooded and mean streets of Boston everything just blended so well and was built in a way that it is seriously impossible to NOT see yourself there. Long story short (too late) I’d give the world building 10 stars if I could.

Then Fine introduced us to our MC’s Eli and Cacia (Cacy). Frankly I don’t think I can come close to doing these two justice in this review. Both of them are paramedics in a city where even the “police” and fire department are on the brink of nonexistence. First to respond in the event of an accident, shot out, and any other disaster you can think of. These paramedics have to carry around stun guns for the pirates that will kill for the organs of the recently deceased and Cacy has the added task of ferrying those who have recently died to their final resting place. Be that heaven or hell, or somewhere in between Cacy’s family has been in charge of this task for generations. It’s a really cool and twisted play on Charon, the ferryman of Hades in greek mythology, in my opinion. But back to Eli & Cacy! I loved them so much if for no other reason than they were brave, smart and oh my god their ship set all other ships to shame! I know that’s an odd thing to throw in there but

I ship them so hard and ARGH GUYS JUST PRE-ORDER THE DAMN BOOK OK?! This review is so not doing it justice and I honestly just can’t even find the words. I loved every word on every page and it just deserves all the stars! ALL OF THEM! The plot was unique and twisty, the characters were AH-MAZING and sweet and bad ass and I LOVES THEM! The writing and world building completely blew me away and even though I knew it before it’s cemented in me now that I honest to God would read this woman’s grocery list if she wrote it.