review by Maryom
I've chased him for over twenty years, and across
countless miles, and though often I was running, there have been many
times when I could do nothing but sit and wait. Now I am only desperate
for it to be finished.
In 1944, in newly liberated Paris, Charles Jackson stumbles on something horrific - a man seemingly drinking the blood of a murdered woman! Shocked and terrified, he freezes - and when he looks again, both man and woman have gone. Dismissing it as either mere imagination or one of the things that happen in war, Charles tries to put it out of his mind. Years later he returns to Paris, and sees the same man in the company of a beautiful young woman. This time he feels he must do something ..... and so begins a lifetime of plotting and planning revenge...
Despite my age, I love Marcus Sedgwick's teen and YA gothic thrillers, so his first book for an adult readership was bound to have me intrigued. It returns to many of his familiar vampire-inspired tales, but with an adult twist as it explores the depths that love, fear and revenge may lead to. Charles' obsession leads him across Europe from Paris to Marseilles, from the remote highlands of Scotland to a ruined Italian hill top village, on a quest that lasts decades as ultimately everything else falls by the wayside and only his thirst for revenge is left.
The style is much like a Victorian ghost story with the expectation of horror building with every page, drawing the reader in, and, even though the ending came as no surprise to me, I was enthralled.
It's a story as much about the pursuer as the pursuit. Charles' character develops and changes with his obsession, and the ending and resolution are as much about those changes as the actual culmination of the chase.
Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Mulholland Books (Hodder & Stoughton)
Genre - vampires, thriller
Buy A Love Like Blood
from Amazon
In 1944, in newly liberated Paris, Charles Jackson stumbles on something horrific - a man seemingly drinking the blood of a murdered woman! Shocked and terrified, he freezes - and when he looks again, both man and woman have gone. Dismissing it as either mere imagination or one of the things that happen in war, Charles tries to put it out of his mind. Years later he returns to Paris, and sees the same man in the company of a beautiful young woman. This time he feels he must do something ..... and so begins a lifetime of plotting and planning revenge...
Despite my age, I love Marcus Sedgwick's teen and YA gothic thrillers, so his first book for an adult readership was bound to have me intrigued. It returns to many of his familiar vampire-inspired tales, but with an adult twist as it explores the depths that love, fear and revenge may lead to. Charles' obsession leads him across Europe from Paris to Marseilles, from the remote highlands of Scotland to a ruined Italian hill top village, on a quest that lasts decades as ultimately everything else falls by the wayside and only his thirst for revenge is left.
The style is much like a Victorian ghost story with the expectation of horror building with every page, drawing the reader in, and, even though the ending came as no surprise to me, I was enthralled.
It's a story as much about the pursuer as the pursuit. Charles' character develops and changes with his obsession, and the ending and resolution are as much about those changes as the actual culmination of the chase.
Maryom's review - 4.5 stars
Publisher - Mulholland Books (Hodder & Stoughton)
Genre - vampires, thriller
Buy A Love Like Blood
from Amazon
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