Love is Red by Sophie Jaff

Good morning, everyone! Today I'm kicking off the TLC book tour for Sophie Jaff's Love is Red.

In the heat of the summer, the Sickle Man terrorizes the city. Katherine, like every other New York woman, is well aware of the killer who has brutally murdered three women in their own apartments. But what Katherine doesn't know is that the killer, a man hiding in plain site, has followed her through the ages. She is his ultimate goal, a victim he's grooming to perfection. And as the death count rises Katherine ignores the warnings that surround her, ignorant to the fact that the killer is someone she already knows. 

Hm, this is one book that kind of baffles me as far as actually reviewing, but I'm going to try anyway. I really liked it. I mean REALLY liked it. But I kind of have no clue what was going on. Or maybe a little bit of a clue but it hasn't been confirmed in this particular book. It is the first in a trilogy, though, so my hope would be that further explanation is to come... and waiting for it is going to be kind of torture!

But wait, that doesn't mean that there isn't a full story or a resolution of sorts in Love is Red. Long term, though... prophecy wise... yeah. I guess I have to wait. I can't even imagine how it's going to play out for three books either.

Love is Red is a cross genre read for sure - blending together thriller, romance, and fantasy elements, amongst others. It's also very sexually charged. And while it is wholly unique as far as my own reading is concerned, it reminded me just a bit of the Deborah Harkness trilogy. I'd likely go so far as to say that if you enjoyed Harkness's books, you'll probably enjoy Jaff. I personally found Jaff's debut to be much darker and more serious in tone than Harkness, though.

Jaff employs a really fun style here, alternating chapters between Katherine and the Sickle Man. But the Sickle Man's chapters are all told in second person. Even Katherine's chapters have a tendency towards atypical narration. One chapter, for example, features a question and answer session with Katherine's own internal monologue spread throughout. You might think that playing with the style in this manner would be distracting or hinder the overall pacing, but it actually didn't at all. In fact, it sped things up a bit, giving the reader the opportunity to really get inside each character's head - a creepy prospect, I know, when one of those is a serial killer. But that was part of what made Love is Red such a phenomenal read.

This is one that's going to stick with me for a while.

Rating: 5/5

To see more stops on the tour be sure to check out the official TLC tour page here.

For more on Sophie Jaff and her work, you can find her on the web here. You can also like her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter.