Reviewed by Grant Leishman for Readers' Favorite

Elisha Dullard is just a typical twenty-something young woman wrapped up in her own world of singleness, friends, and shopping in the very close future. In Unmarked, Kate Hansen brings us a simple, uncomplicated and frightening view of what that dystopian future could look like. Elisha loves the freedom and lack of worries her single life brings her but, at the edge of her consciousness, she feels the world changing around her. Her best friend Emily keeps trying to warn her that things are changing; the banks and the big corporations are consolidating their power and that very soon they will have no choice but to do things their way – online. Cash is disappearing fast from the economy and before long everything will be conducted online. But, for Elisha, the epiphany occurs when Emily relates a tale from the long forgotten and mostly ignored Bible, from the Book of Revelation. When Elisha sees the prediction in the Book of Revelation coming true, she realizes humanity is in for a desperate struggle for survival and she will be caught up in it. With Emily brutally murdered by an ex-boyfriend, Elisha must face the coming trials alone, that is until she meets the perfect man in Michael.

Unmarked is a frighteningly realistic take on where the world appears to be headed. Author Kate Hansen brings us an unvarnished, largely unemotional tale that is starker because of the way she relates it. I particularly appreciated the fact that Hansen resisted the temptation to take the fanatical, moral or religious high ground in this piece. By making her hero a down-to-earth, somewhat scatterbrained and essentially “normal” young adult, she told the story through eyes that any reader could identify with. I particularly like the allusions she made comparing what was happening now with similar instances in humanity’s history. The old saying “the veneer of civilization is dangerously thin” kept coming to mind as I read these pages. Perhaps the most chilling aspect of the story was the ability to see the direct parallels to the dystopian world the author created happening right now, here today. That was frightening in its own right. This is a fantastic, very simple story of what can happen when good people do nothing, and is extremely well told by author Hansen. I can highly recommend this book to all, not just dystopian fans.