Livia Blackburne’s Rosemarked takes several nods from other popular YA titles, but adds a few twists and turns that make it an enjoyable read.
Rosemarked is not shy about the fact that it reads like a slightly different take on An Ember in the Ashes, at least in terms of its basic setup. It’s right there in the book’s official description.
But a little brazenness never hurt, and there are some quite salient points contained here, actually. Unfortunately, we’ll have to allude to some spoilers here and there, but if you want to know what we thought of this book, sent to us by Disney-Hyperion, it’s this: It might take nods from some of the most popular titles out there right now, but it’s different enough to make it really enjoyable.
Okay, now let’s dive in to our basic plot, although you could also read the summary above in the official description. Both of our main characters, Zivah and Dineas, live under the Amparan Empire, which has a rose plague problem. There are three outcomes of the plague if you catch it. You die, you live only to see the disease return, or you become completely immune. Oh, and to make things more interesting, Dineas is part of his people’s resistance efforts, while Zivah is outstanding with medicine.
Blackburne makes incredibly good use of Zivah’s skills, not just as a convenient trait whenever the plot needs it but as a consistent reminder that Zivah is willing to learn, that she has a lot of knowledge, that she wants to do more than just repeat what she’s learned forever. Her chapters, as a result, end up quite interesting. It helps that Blackburne, although working in a pretty standard character type, throws a few twists into it, like Zivah casually tending to snakes and scorpions and actually having a pet snake.
(Her name’s Diadem.)
But Blackburne also sets herself a challenge with Dineas. Here’s where we run into spoiler territory, so take a moment to scroll down if you need to. Thanks to Zivah’s handiwork, sometimes Dineas has all of his memories — and sometimes he doesn’t. That means that there are really two characters named Dineas. However, Blackburne is careful to make sure that both read as believable. Her points about how experiences shape a person’s personality are fascinating, and Dineas’ duality provides her a good opportunity to explore that.
Okay, that’s enough spoilers.
Where Blackburne generally excels in this book is with the internal conflicts of her main characters. Both Dineas and Zivah have their own conflicts to overcome. And, as the book promises a “slow-burn romance,” that’s exactly what you get. She does both of these things well.
It’s still hard to get over that initial hurdle, though, of the fact that you can’t help but feel you’ve read a variant on this book before somewhere. The idea of characters resisting an overwhelming power has permeated YA to a strong degree, and there’s nothing bad about it. However, working in such a common theme makes it harder to stand out.
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Rosemarked clearly sets us up for another YA series, but we’ll put this one on the interesting list, because there are still lingering questions. There are promising parts here, after all, like the plague that provides the inspiration for the title! (Oh, yes, there’s a plague.)
Finally, this book better than An Ember in the Ashes? Well, that’s impossible to say objectively. I will say there are parts of that book that I liked better than Rosemarked, but Rosemarked has its own strengths — and those include grabbing a reader from the first page.