Love is Red - An Interesting Read

TITLE: Love is Red (Nightsong Trilogy #1)
AUTHOR: Sophie Jaff
PUBLISHER:  Harper
PUBLISHING DATE: May 12, 2015

FROM GOODREADS: Redefining the thriller's tale of the hunter and the hunted, This electrifying, hypnotically beautiful debut spins dark suspense and literary fantasy into a mesmerizing story of survival.

Katherine Emerson was born to fulfill a dark prophecy centuries in the making, but she doesn't know it yet. However, one man does: a killer stalking the women of New York City, a monster the media dubs the "Sickle Man" because of the weapon he uses to turn his victims' bodies into canvases for his twisted art. People think he's the next Son of Sam, but we know how he thinks and how he feels . . . and discover that he is driven by darker, much more dangerous desires than we can bear to imagine. He takes more than just his victims' lives, and each death brings him closer to the one woman he must possess at any cost.

Amid the city's escalating hysteria, Katherine is trying to unknot her tangled heart. Two very different men have entered her previously uneventful world—handsome and personable David, alluring yet aloof Sael—and turned it upside down. She finds herself involved in a complicated triangle . . . but how well does she really know either of them?

Told from the alternating viewpoints of Katherine and the Sickle Man, Sophie Jaff's intoxicating narrative will pull you in and hold you close. As the body count rises, Katherine is haunted by harrowing visions that force her to question her sanity. All she wants is to find love. He just wants to find her.

Ablaze with fear, mystery, and possibility, Love Is Red is the first book in the Night Song trilogy. With this unforgettable novel—one that combines the literary and the supernatural, fantasy and horror, the past and the present—Katherine's moment of awakening is here. And her story is only just beginning.

MY THOUGHTS: 
I find this book hard to describe without giving too much away. I will say that it combines horror, fantasy, thriller and mystery genres quite well, which could not have been an easy thing to accomplish. Katherine, the main character, is being stalked by "Sickle Man" although she is unaware of what is happening. In addition, she is smack dab in the middle of a love triangle which I normally do not enjoy, but which flowed perfectly well in Love is Red.

Let's see...what did I like about the book? I enjoyed many of the characters and felt an immediately attachment to several of them. I liked the city setting and Jaff really pulls the reader into the action right from the beginning. I also really enjoyed that this book is told from two separate first-person POVs. They alternate between Katherine and the serial killer and it is rather haunting to see what exactly goes on in such a twisted mind. Overall the plot was well-done and kept me interested and the book definitely did not drag.

Now, on the flip side. I found parts of this book confusing. There is an element of fantasy which is told through chapters of a book called "The Maiden of Morwyn Castle" which are interspersed between some of the chapters. While a nice element, I don't know if I ever did fully comprehend the connection. In addition, this is the first book of a trilogy and I think I would have rather it been a stand alone novel. I am sure I will continue on, as I definitely want to see where Jaff takes this one, but I would have been content for it to end as it did as well.

Overalll, I would recommend this book to a lot of people as it does cross over a lot of genres. However, be aware there are rape scenes and graphic murders. If you are even somewhat interested in the premise of the book, I would say give it a try - in my opinion the good outweighs the bad.

MY RATING: 4 PAWS

 COYER SCAVENGER HUNT #35 - Read a book with no pictures only words on the cover (Double points for Red, White & Blue Read-a-thon)