Indie Book Corner: Sky Ghosts: Marco, by Alexandra Engellmann

Beautiful Cover Art by the Author

The Quick and Dirty

+Humor
+Cutthroat Violence
+Plenty of Descriptive Action
+A Closer Look Into the Life of a Fan Favorite Character
+Pain and Marco's Brutiful (yeah I combined brutal and beautiful) Friendship Gets its Origin

He circled her slowly, pulling the stolen knife from his belt.

"Spice it up a lil' bit?" he gave her a serious look, and she showed her teeth.

"With pleasure," she purred, taking a knife two times bigger than Marco's from underneath her jacket.

 

Sky Ghosts: Marco is the newest entry into the Sky Ghost series and is a prequel starring the titular character, Marco.  Marco, as fans of the series will no doubt remember, is the mohawked badass from Sky Ghosts: All For One (which I also reviewed) with a penchant for breaking bones and having an encyclopedic knowledge of how to offend women with obscene commentary, but beyond all that he was a character many came to care for by the end of that story.  This book is strictly about how he came to join the Sky Ghost organization of New York.

Now in these reviews I like to avoid spoilers whenever possible so I typically avoid synopsis of the novel.  I like to instead go over the points about the story that I liked.  With that said, let's get started.

The book starts off with a mystery of sorts.  Just who is this Marco guy and why did the Ghosts find him in an alley, unconscious, and surrounded by the dead bodies of their enemies, the Beasts?  He appears to be just a teenager and yet this scene suggests that his combat skill is like that of a veteran.  Here we're introduced to a younger Pain, the main character of the first book in the series, Sky Ghosts: All For One.  Once Marco is conscious we get to the Ghost's headquarters and get to what the book is really about.

Offensive humor, bloodletting, bone breaking, and...pranks!?

So what this book really boils down to and why I like it so much is because it's just a fun side story.  It doesn't seek to be more than that.  There is no epic plot, only shades of a mystery surrounding this somewhat enigmatic character.  But more than that, we get a ton of humor and action as Marco tries to get accustomed to his new life and tries to get this offensive and violent girl out of his mind.

I laughed a lot while reading Marco.  The silly teenage nature of him and Pain combined with their stubborn natures and violent streaks made for some suitably hilarious and cringe worthy scenes.  For those who've read the first book in the series, their relationship is even more violent and volatile in this book.  The pranks they played on each other were pretty damn funny as well.  There was one red t-shirt that had me dying, mainly it was Marco's attitude while wearing the offensive garment that had me howling like mad.  You'll see what I mean once you read it.  Pain was so easy to rope into that one, I almost felt bad for her because Marco knew just how to push her buttons.

Beyond the laughs was the spectacle of action.  Alexandra continues to surprise me with her in-depth action scenes.  The details she uses to paint her picture give a nice mental picture of well choreographed and fluid action.  There was one epic fight in the training hall between Pain and Marco that was just a complete joy to behold.  That's slightly spoilery, but I want you to have something to really look forward to, especially for all you action junkies out there.  This was a buffet of violent theater and what's more, the stakes were actually very high.  I like when books can achieve that without, I don't know, the world being in danger from a nuclear bomb.

This was a pretty good entry into the Sky Ghosts series.  Their wasn't much revealed and so if you're the type who needs game changing, epicly plotted events in your stories to enjoy them then this isn't for you.  This is for people looking for intense action, some humor, and a look into one of the events and characters briefly mentioned in the first book.  I don't really have any negative points that I can think of.  I was a big fan of the first book as well and this book gave me what I wanted.  So in my opinion Sky Ghosts: Marco is a damn good time for fans of short stories with action and humor.  Check it out!

Buy For Your Kindle Today: www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0128SO95I