Tuesday 11 July 2017

The Red – An Erotic Fantasy - by Tiffany Reisz



Publisher: 8th Circle Press (eBook and Trade Paperback)
 Tantor Audio (Audiobook CD and Download)

On-Sale Date: July 11, 2017 (Worldwide)

Genre: Erotica/Paranormal Erotica

Page Count: 248 pages


Goodreads Link: Goodreads


Blurb

Mona Lisa St. James made a deathbed promise that she would do anything to save her mother's art gallery. Unfortunately, not only is The Red painted red, but it's in the red. She soon realizes she has no choice but to sell it.

Just as she realizes she has no choice but to sell it, a mysterious man comes in after closing time and makes her an offer: He will save The Red if she agrees to submit to him for the period of one year.

The man is handsome, English, and terribly tempting...but surely her mother didn't mean for Mona to sell herself to a stranger. Then again, she did promise to do anything to save The Red...

The Red is a standalone novel of erotic fantasy from Tiffany Reisz, international bestselling author of The Bourbon Thief and the Original Sinners series. 



Review

When I pick up a book by Tiffany Reisz I know to expect the unexpected. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that she will take me places I’ve never been before and make me enjoy and marvel at storylines that should probably shock if not horrify me. All of that was reinforced while I read The Red. In fact it is probably safe to say Mrs Reisz surpassed herself with this story when it comes to making shocking and graphic scenes not only tantalisingly hot but also borderline normal.

Mona knows she will do anything to keep the promise she made to her mother on her deathbed. She won’t stop at anything when it comes to keeping The Red, the art gallery she’s inherited from her mother, open. So, when a mysterious man named Malcolm offers to provide her with the money she needs to avoid bankruptcy in return for her willing submission over the course of a year, she barely hesitates before agreeing.

I won’t go into any details about what follows, if only because it might lead to the review not being accepted on certain sites. What I will say is that Malcolm takes images from famous paintings and re-enacts them, stretching Mona’s body and boundaries with every subsequent encounter.

“By the end of her beating, she couldn’t tell the crop apart from his kindness. They were one and the same to her so that every strike of the crop was as tender as a kiss and every word of tenderness made her crave the crop.”

It isn’t long before the boundaries blur. While Mona tries to convince herself that she only puts up with Malcolm and his kinky scenarios, which are too vivid to be mere dreams, for the money he’s promised, it soon becomes clear that she’s becoming addicted to Malcolm and the exquisite torture he introduces her to.

“She could either see Malcolm or she could see reason, and Malcolm was a finer sight than anything as dull as reason.”

Which leads me to the warning I feel I should issue. This book is not for the easily shocked or offended. When I say that Malcolm pushes virtually every single (sexual) limit a person could have, I’m not joking. Many things which you might feel are or should be taboo are exactly the experiences that tie Mona ever closer to Malcolm. Her journey is shocking, beautiful and mesmerising.

I have to be honest here and admit that for the longest time I thought I wasn’t going to adore The Red. I thoroughly enjoyed the story, was mesmerised by it in fact, but had this nagging feeling that it was missing that something special that had made me love the Original Sinners stories so much. And I can’t deny that I never connected to Mona or Malcolm in quite the same way as I did to Nora & co in that earlier series.

But, I should have known better than to even consider for one minute that The Red lacked substance or originality. This is, after all, a story by Tiffany Reisz. And she is in a league of her own when it comes to pulling threads together. Few authors can match her when it comes to taking you by surprise long after you think you’ve got it all figured out. Just when I was absolutely sure the story I had almost finished was a rather exquisite version of ‘Mona in Carnal Wonderland’; an intriguing, deviant and endlessly erotic fantasy with little rhyme or reason to the underlying story, it suddenly all made sense without the final reveal diminishing the dreamlike quality to the story. And what’s more, I loved that the ending implies that the journey Mona had undertaken with Malcolm was only the start of our heroine’s life as a perfect whore.

 So while it remains true that the Original Sinners books will more than likely forever be my favourites, I can’t deny that I did thoroughly enjoy this paranormal, very erotic, and addictive fantasy.

“And the devil had smirked, not smiled, because the devil does not smile.”

About Tiffany Reisz

Tiffany Reisz is the international bestselling author of the Original Sinners series for Mira Books and Mills & Boon, including the RT Book Reviews Best Erotic Romance 2012 winner The Siren and the LAMBDA Literary Award-winning The King. Her novel The Saint won the Romance Writers of America RITA® for best Erotic Romance in 2015.
Follow Tiffany on Social Media: Facebook • Twitter • Instagram

About 8th Circle Press
8th Circle Press is a Lexington, Kentucky-based publisher of literary friction. For more information, visit our website at www.8thCirclePress.com


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