Joel Fox's The Mark on Eve is a page-turner. The plotting and pacing are excellent, and not confusing even though it tends to go back and forth in time so that events in the past are revealed when we readers need them to be, rather than in a clump initially before we get immersed in the story. Although I had a pretty good idea where things were heading, the writing and pacing kept me intrigued.

I wish the characterization had been as good. Both Eve and the reporter who is her antagonist here are far more single-focused than people in general are; usually we get distracted by all the other stuff that's going on. I also did not find Tom Evanger's obsession with Eve to be particularly plausible without additional context -- which is not included. OK, dude meets girl with a secret. Surprise? And while his rationale is that she is close to the next likely president -- she actually isn't.

The whole blackmail sub-plot is pretty irrelevant, too.

And in the end? Eve's big secret -- no spoilers here! -- is nuts enough that, even if it were true, it is unlikely to be believable to anyone who isn't already off the deep end. So that part didn't stack up for me.

I will mention, too, that it's very polemical about women's political representation -- about which I feel strongly in favor, but it is overdone here; I doubt that Eve would have found this to be her sole motivation for 200-plus years.

Whether the author intended this or not, Tom Evanger is a pretty brilliant characterization of a Nice Guy.

I did mostly enjoy this -- but know what you're getting into.