Marked

Marked is the first novel of the House of Night fantasy series by P. C. Cast and Kristin Cast, released on 1 May 2007 by St. Martin's Press. It is set in a world like the reader's own, except that vampyres have always existed and are tracked and trained rather than hunted, and being chosen is a mark rather than a death sentence.

Zoey Redbird is sixteen when she is marked and leaves her home and her family for the House of Night, a school where fledglings either complete the change or die. She finds friends, an unusual affinity for the elements and a group of adults who are watching her closely, and the novel follows her first term as she works out what the school's rules actually protect.

The series was written by a mother-and-daughter team and is aimed at young adult readers, with the school supplying the setting and the vampire hierarchy supplying the politics. It was followed by many further volumes, and the first book ends with the school year not yet finished and Zoey's position inside it unresolved.