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GateBorn: The Marked
Kit wasn’t supposed to be here. She didn’t die—she was claimed.
Dragged into a fractured afterlife ruled by magic, buried agendas, and ruthless souls, Kit discovers she’s more than just lost - she’s the key to a power the dead fear and the living would kill to control.
Marked by forbidden magic and tethered to a Gate that should no longer exist, Kit is thrown into a brutal world of echo fragments, Council secrets, and a boy who might have to choose between loving her or saving the world from her.
The Council wants to contain her. Cory wants to own her. And Kit? She just wants the truth.
GateBorn is the first book in a slow-burn, emotionally charged fantasy series where grief is currency, power is contagious, and nothing stays buried forever.
Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, V.E. Schwab, and Holly Black.
Dragged into a fractured afterlife ruled by magic, buried agendas, and ruthless souls, Kit discovers she’s more than just lost - she’s the key to a power the dead fear and the living would kill to control.
Marked by forbidden magic and tethered to a Gate that should no longer exist, Kit is thrown into a brutal world of echo fragments, Council secrets, and a boy who might have to choose between loving her or saving the world from her.
The Council wants to contain her. Cory wants to own her. And Kit? She just wants the truth.
GateBorn is the first book in a slow-burn, emotionally charged fantasy series where grief is currency, power is contagious, and nothing stays buried forever.
Perfect for fans of Leigh Bardugo, V.E. Schwab, and Holly Black.
493 pages, Kindle Edition
Published July 11, 2025
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 25, 2025
I went into GateBorn: The Marked expecting a typical YA fantasy with a mysterious protagonist and some shadowy magical politics, but what I got was so much richer and layered. K. Johnson has built an afterlife that feels both terrifying and oddly beautiful, full of fragments of what was and haunting echoes of what could have been. From the very first chapter, when Kit is claimed rather than killed, I knew this wasn’t going to follow the usual tropes of “chosen one accidentally stumbles into magic.” This story is much darker, much more deliberate.
Kit as a protagonist really hooked me. She’s not fearless, she’s reeling, angry, and grieving but that vulnerability makes her feel real. Watching her wrestle with the idea that she didn’t die but was taken set the emotional tone for everything that followed. Her Mark and connection to the Gate isn’t just some cool magic trick, it’s a burden, a tether that keeps her pulled in two directions: between the living and the dead, between freedom and control.
One of my favorite aspects was the politics of the Council. They’re not cartoon villains; they’re calculating, secretive, and genuinely chilling in how they wield grief and power. The idea that grief itself is almost a form of currency in this world struck me as both horrifying and fascinating. It added a weight to every choice Kit made, because survival here wasn’t just about strength, it was about what you were willing to sacrifice, what you were willing to remember or forget.
Cory’s role in the story complicated things in the best way. He’s not a straightforward love interest he’s dangerous, charming, and torn in ways that kept me guessing. The slow-burn tension between him and Kit worked because it was laced with mistrust. Every interaction felt like it could tip either into intimacy or betrayal, and that uncertainty gave their relationship a sharp edge.
What really stood out to me, though, was Johnson’s writing style. There’s a lyrical quality to her descriptions that makes the world feel almost tactile you can feel the sharpness of broken magic, the emptiness of echo fragments, the cold beauty of the Gates. But she balances that with dialogue that feels raw and human, which keeps the book from getting too weighed down by its own atmosphere.
Pacing-wise, the book is a slow burn, and I mean that in the best sense. It doesn’t rush to spill its secrets. Instead, it builds tension chapter by chapter, unraveling just enough mystery to keep me hungry for more, while holding back the bigger truths until the payoff feels earned. By the time the last few chapters rolled around, I was completely invested not just in Kit’s survival, but in the larger question of whether this fractured afterlife could even be saved.
If I had one small critique, it’s that there were moments where I wished Kit had a little more space to just feel before being pushed into the next revelation or battle of wills. But maybe that’s part of the point, this world doesn’t give her the luxury of standing still.
Overall, GateBorn: The Marked feels like the start of something big. It has the emotional depth of Leigh Bardugo, the eerie, otherworldly atmosphere of V.E. Schwab, and the moral grayness I love in Holly Black’s characters. But it’s also distinctly its own. The themes of grief, identity, and power left me thinking about it long after I closed the book.
I can already tell this series is going to hurt in the best way possible. And honestly? I’m ready for it.
Kit as a protagonist really hooked me. She’s not fearless, she’s reeling, angry, and grieving but that vulnerability makes her feel real. Watching her wrestle with the idea that she didn’t die but was taken set the emotional tone for everything that followed. Her Mark and connection to the Gate isn’t just some cool magic trick, it’s a burden, a tether that keeps her pulled in two directions: between the living and the dead, between freedom and control.
One of my favorite aspects was the politics of the Council. They’re not cartoon villains; they’re calculating, secretive, and genuinely chilling in how they wield grief and power. The idea that grief itself is almost a form of currency in this world struck me as both horrifying and fascinating. It added a weight to every choice Kit made, because survival here wasn’t just about strength, it was about what you were willing to sacrifice, what you were willing to remember or forget.
Cory’s role in the story complicated things in the best way. He’s not a straightforward love interest he’s dangerous, charming, and torn in ways that kept me guessing. The slow-burn tension between him and Kit worked because it was laced with mistrust. Every interaction felt like it could tip either into intimacy or betrayal, and that uncertainty gave their relationship a sharp edge.
What really stood out to me, though, was Johnson’s writing style. There’s a lyrical quality to her descriptions that makes the world feel almost tactile you can feel the sharpness of broken magic, the emptiness of echo fragments, the cold beauty of the Gates. But she balances that with dialogue that feels raw and human, which keeps the book from getting too weighed down by its own atmosphere.
Pacing-wise, the book is a slow burn, and I mean that in the best sense. It doesn’t rush to spill its secrets. Instead, it builds tension chapter by chapter, unraveling just enough mystery to keep me hungry for more, while holding back the bigger truths until the payoff feels earned. By the time the last few chapters rolled around, I was completely invested not just in Kit’s survival, but in the larger question of whether this fractured afterlife could even be saved.
If I had one small critique, it’s that there were moments where I wished Kit had a little more space to just feel before being pushed into the next revelation or battle of wills. But maybe that’s part of the point, this world doesn’t give her the luxury of standing still.
Overall, GateBorn: The Marked feels like the start of something big. It has the emotional depth of Leigh Bardugo, the eerie, otherworldly atmosphere of V.E. Schwab, and the moral grayness I love in Holly Black’s characters. But it’s also distinctly its own. The themes of grief, identity, and power left me thinking about it long after I closed the book.
I can already tell this series is going to hurt in the best way possible. And honestly? I’m ready for it.
Displaying 1 of 1 review