PASSION MARKED by Ophelia Silk
- Publisher: Self-Published, September 12th 2021
- Genre: Romance, Fantasy
- Format: Paperback (eARC)
- Page Count: 311 pages
- My Rating: ★★★ (3/5)
Click on the cover for my review on Goodreads.
A romance between a racehorse trainer and Nocturne centaur! The first few chapters really sucked me into the story but I was slightly disappointed in how the rest of the book played out. Ellie (human, she/her) and Nadine (centaur, demi-girl, she/her, Mx.) are cute together and I really liked their interactions and small touches. Note that there is also quite some sex scenes going on, but I’m here for the cuteness and Ellie’s attempt at winking.
The writing of Passion Marked was enjoyable. It is my second book by Silk, and while the first one Spellbound (my review) was a fantasy romance with a simplistic plot, this book was somewhat too expansive for me. I had some issues with the pacing of the story where the first half was slow and everything happened close to the end. There is a lot of talk about magic, like Nadine’s Nocturne magic, but we don’t really get to understand how these magical elements worked. The only thing I know about Nadine’s magic is that… she has shadows that curl up at her hooves? So the world-building didn’t work great for me and I had the feeling of the world setting being just out of reach. I did enjoy the fact that there were phones and high school students of different species (just random characters; this book is NOT YA), making the world in Passion Marked feel more like ours.
A huge part of the book is built around the discrimination against Nocturnes. The more I read, the more I felt like other people’s attitude toward Nocturnes is just like racism in our world. While the characters took forms of different species and magical abilities instead of, say, skin color, I don’t know what to say about the storyline based off of the very real racism.
The best part of the book had to be the characters. I love Nadine’s friend Dela, a Diurne, who is this eccentric rich lady that is very flirty and cares about nothing but her own comfort and her friends’ wellbeing. Dela is aro/ace and very ridiculous in an endearing way. I also really like the gay couple Flower, who randomly bursts into singing love songs, and Brecker, who seems stern but is actually very soft-hearted.
I had high hopes for Passion Marked, but it seems to have missed the mark for me. The characters were lots of fun though, so I’m bumping my rating to 3 stars.
content warnings: racism (against Nocturnes), graphic sex, light bdsm, kidnapping, physical abuse, self harm (for magical purpose), blood, violence, blood consumption (for Nocturnes), forced captivity
I received a digital review copy from the author and am voluntarily leaving a review.
