Being a great admirer of JP McLean’s Gift Legacy, I was eager to read her newest book, Blood Mark. She didn’t disappoint: once again, I was impressed with her rich imagination, her storytelling skills and her ability to build tension. I was quickly immersed in her world.

Blood Mark is a fast-paced suspense with a heart-pounding plot and a compelling set of characters, highlighted by supernatural elements and a love story happening in the background. Wrapped in the bleak atmosphere of a rugged urban milieu, the novel features a streetwise, tough-and-cynical-from-the-outside, compassionate-and-kind-from-the-inside heroine, a fighter and a survivor with a moral center and a will made of steel. Moreover, it’s a framework to put friendship and loyalty to the test, to show courage and resilience, and to overcome fears and insecurities. Short chapters, the author’s choice of third-person point of view and multiple narrators to move the story forward, as well as strategically interjected Visiting Dreams, only add to the fast pulse and urban rhythm of this book.

I read Blood Mark in three sittings, a fact that speaks for itself. It was way after midnight when I finished it, tired and sleepy but unwilling to leave the last few chapters for the following day. It’s fascinating how stories sometimes work: although I suspected that the ending would be satisfying, I needed reassurance from the book itself. I guess it happens when you and your read ‘click’.

A few words about the Gift Legacy series, while I’m here: if you like urban fantasies (or supernatural fiction, or contemporary fantasies; I’m not sure which one of these categories fits it best), I highly recommend it. If you don’t like this genre, the Gift Legacy may just change your mind. The six books of the series, in addition to the Gift Legacy companion, stand high on the list of my favourite fantasies, with its imaginative and original plot and characters you wish you could be friends with.

JP McLean is a Canadian author based in British Columbia.