Rumors of witchcraft have haunted Margaret ever since she was born. A strange, dark-eyed child, she was feared and then shunned by her medieval English village after her mother's brutal murder. When her father remarries, Margaret--now a young woman--realizes that she must leave the village for good. Hundreds of years later, as fall comes to Manhattan, Katherine Emerson prays her horrific summer is over. She survived a killer's attack, but her roommate Andrea was not so lucky and now Katherine is raising Andrea's son, Lucas. However, the rest of her world is in ruins: the man she loves has left her and she's pregnant with his child. She accepts she'll be a single mother--until he insists on doing "the right thing", which means taking her and Lucas with him to London for his new job. Katherine hopes that maybe she too can start over. But starting over doesn't mean that the disturbing and dangerous encounters with strangers will end. As Katherine begins to fall apart, Margaret's fight to survive in a hostile world reveals she has inherited her mother's extraordinary gifts--but will she use them for good or evil? Can Margaret change the destiny of Katherine and her unborn child? And what will happen if she succeeds?
Publishers Weekly Reviews : PW Reviews 2017 April #2
This supernatural historical serial killer novel moves at a snail's pace, and its protagonist comes off as two-dimensional and shallow. Shortly after the events of Love Is Red, Katherine Emerson is still reeling from her encounter with serial killer David Balan, aka the Sickle Man. Her boyfriend (and David's best friend), Sael de Villias, has left her, and she's pregnant with Sael's baby and raising Lucas, the four-year-old son of one of David's victims. After she tells Sael about the pregnancy, he asks her to go to London with him, and she agrees, but strange things have been happening and she can't quite leave her uneasiness behind. Once she's in London, Sael is distant and the odd occurrences only increase. Katherine's narrative is paralleled by that of Margaret, an Englishwoman with special powers who lived hundreds of years ago and is inextricably tied to Katherine and a soul thief called the Entity. Margaret's passages are very atmospheric, but they give the story a choppy feel. A late twist is too over the top. Readers who didn't read the first book will be hard-pressed to keep up. Agent: Alexandra Machinist, ICM. (June)