Sean Grills

The guards arrive at my humble cottage with a ridiculous offer: Come to an exclusive and mysterious isle to compete for the hand of a royal husband. Enjoy a week of glittering balls, dancing, ostentatious wealth…and a royal hunt. All I have to do is to get rejected by a prince, and I’ll be sent home with a pot of money. My father tells me it’s dangerous. He begs me not to go. But I'd do anything for him, I could change our lives with this money.

I knew Destiny wasn’t done with me. I knew that she was just getting warmed up, but I had no clue just how hard my world was going to come crashing down on me. I had thought that I was going to get my fairytale wedding and marry the man of my dreams. I was wrong.

Once upon a time, there was a beautiful green witch. She blew into my life every bit as wild as the storm magic that lived within my veins. My heart had been nothing but a lifeless organ within my chest until she breathed life back into me, ensuring that each beat from that moment forward was for her. Saige Wildes was everything good. Sun-kissed freckles in the summer, hair that shimmered like fire when touched by light, and a smile that brought six men to their knees. Her magic was the magic of life.

I thought I had a lot of questions before. Finding myself back in Besmet with the demon from my dreams, I’m finding it hard to deny the connection I feel toward him, despite the fact that he’s certifiably insane. When did my life get so chaotic?

Growing up in Emerald Lakes, population 682, had been safe and comfortable. Running my own magic shop and making a living off my green witchcraft, I have no complaints. Sure, there’s my ex, who never understood the word "no", but there’s also the lovable and eccentric townspeople who feel more like one huge extended family, and let’s not forget my boy-crazed Gran who keeps us all on our toes. Strange, unnatural things are brewing in Emerald Lakes, and I can’t ignore the sinking suspicion that something life-changing is headed my way.

Life sucks when your friends are pissed at you. Just ask Zoey Redbird. In one week she has gone from having three boyfriends to having none, and from having a close group of friends who trusted and supported her to being an outcast. Speaking of friends, the only two Zoey has left are undead and unMarked. And Neferet has declared war on humans, which Zoey knows in her heart is wrong.

One minute, sixteen-year-old Zoey Redbird is a normal teenager dealing with everyday high school stress: her cute boyfriend Heath, the school's star quarterback who suddenly seems more interested in partying than playing ball; her nosy frenemy Kayla, who's way too concerned with how things are going with Heath; her uber-tough geometry test tomorrow. The next, she's Marked as a fledgling vampyre, forcing her to leave her ordinary life behind and join the House of Night, a boarding school where she will train to become an adult vampyre.