My Review : ROSEMARKEDm

I am not an offical book reviewer, I just wanted to share my recent read with you.

My usual go-to genre of books are in the Romance category. Contemporary, Suspense, and Historical. I decided I needed to broaden my horizons so to speak and read something different. The cover of this book is what grabbed me first. I think they did a great job at making the book stand out against other books and it also just so happens to be pink and gold. The colors of my newly remodeled office! It will look fabulous on my bookshelf!

Rosemarked, by Livia Blackburne, is a young adult fantasy fiction. The book had an Aboriginal vibe to it, in my opinion. The main characters are Zivah and Dineas and the story takes place in a world that I am not sure is past, present or future.

Zivah is a 17-year-old newly appointed healer in her village of Dara. She tends to plagued soldiers from Amparan who are a threat to her village even before they become ill. While caring for one of the Amparan commanders, she catches the plague which will either kill you, leave you rosemarked for a couple of years and then kill you or leave you umbertouched with brown marks but alive and immune to it. Zivah becomes rosemarked and her healing days are numbered now.

Dineas comes from a warrior tribe close to Zivah’s village, and his tribe has been fighting Amparan soldiers to keep them from taking their land. He is introduced as a recently released prisoner of the Amparan Empire because he had the Rose Plague and they turned him loose to die. He doesn’t die but becomes umbertouched.

Zivah and Dineas are commissioned to go to the Amparan Capitol to spy and send word back to their villages.

The story started off kind of boring to me, and I didn’t feel very connected to the characters. I didn’t honestly get into the story until the second half of the book.

Zivah and Dineas had to work together to find out Amparan secrets and in doing so, a slow burn romance formed. Yes! A Romance! Lol. Zivah used her knowledge of herbal potions, and snake venom and Dineas went undercover in the Amparan army.

Thankfully the author included a rough map at the beginning of the book or wouldn’t have known where the heck the scenes were taking place. The worldbuilding could have been better because I still don’t have a picture in my head of how the villages and compounds looked. The storyline picks up near the end of the book. I wish it hadn’t taken so long!

The Emperor catches the Rose Plague, and his son becomes the ruler. Questions of how the plaque originally started, begin to surface. Zivah and Dineas rally together to send word of an impending attack back to their people.

The ending isn’t really an ending at all, its a cliffhanger for the next book. Haven’t decided yet if I will read it.