"Marked" by P.C. Cast and "Children of the Lamp" by P.B. Kerr

This weekend I read one of the best vampire series I've seen since Twilight. In different ways, it's actually better than Twilight. While Bella and Edward are all about the True Love, Zoey Redbird has more of a complete life in terms of school, friends, and other issues than if her One True Love is going to allow her to be with him forever (a la Bella & Edward). I also loved the humor Cast wrote into the story - you guys all know how I love funny books!

Marked follows Zoey Redbird in a world where highly probable vampires are sensed by adult vampires and those potential vampires, called Fledglings, are brought to the House of Night, a special school for vampires and Fledglings. Zoey is such a person, but she is unique - she has special powers bestowed upon her by the Goddess, and she must make new friends, become accustomed to her new school and life, as well as try to figure out why she has these powers and how she can best use them to the satisfaction of the Goddess. I give this one a 9 out of 10, so if you haven't read it yet, you really should.

The other book I read this weekend was the first Children of the Lamp book, The Akhenaten Adventure. I've seen many of these books on the shelves in the Teen Spaces, so I finally caved into my curiosity and checked it out. The story follows two 12-year-old twins, Phillipa and John, as they find out that they are from a long line of dijnn and they must not only learn about their powers, they also have to defeat the big bad evil that's threatening their world. There were some really funny parts in this book, and it was refreshing to read a book not about vampires or werewolves or wizards, but something else magical. However, the story really dragged - the children don't even find out about their powers until 100 pages in. If you don't mind that, I recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy and the whole I'm-a-normal-person-wait-I -have-magic-powers-how-cool! storyline. I give this one a 7.5, and I'll be reading the second one eventually.

Next up is The Christopher Killer, which was a Florida Teens Read book from the 2008-09 school year.