Imprint: Book Three of the Red Saga by L. Marie Wood
Mocha Memoirs Press (July 14, 2026)
Reviewed by Elizabeth Broadbent 
Marie Wood’s Imprint is the third book of The Red Thread Saga, “a genre-bending, experimental series,” which weaves elements of traditional horror, science fiction, psychological horror, romance, and thriller into a slipstream conglomeration that’s purely original and purely Wood. With all six books releasing in one year (!) fans don’t have to wait to learn the fate of throuple Mark, Eric, and Nicole (referred to as The Tryst in book one).
Fans expecting Imprint to have the romance of The Tryst will be disappointed again. While Wood serves up a few more sexy scenes in Imprint, the novel opens in the near-future as Mia holo-calls her lover, Nikhil, and watches in horror as he’s murdered, presumably by their lover Lathan. In short order, Lathan’s convicted, Mia’s life with her wife and son falls to pieces, and Lathan’s spending the rest of his life in jail. But just before Nikhil died, a strange voice came through the hologram call …
Mia, Nikhil, and Lathan (or Nicole, Mark, and Eric) are clones, part of a pet project built by Ryan, who’s long since perished. But before a supernova took his life on a far-off planet, Ryan preserved his life’s work, and his long-lost brother Jason’s determined to find them. But what he finds, and what Ryan was supposed to build, may not be exactly what we expect—and that may place Mia in mortal danger.
A genre-bending mixture of science fiction and horror, Imprint is a story of a woman determined to survive, to find meaning in a tragedy that ought to destroy her. Against a backdrop of the fantastic, Wood asks very real questions: What do we do, and how do we react, when our lives fall apart? How do we lose the ones we love, and how do we pick up the pieces afterward? Calling this book “grief horror” wouldn’t be far off.
The characterizations shine here, and seeing Wood have several books to stretch her limbs, crack her knuckles, and get to work on crafting its subtleties is a masterclass for the rest of us. Mia’s grief works devastation on the page, and the scene between her and Lathan in prison captures heartbreak and the inevitability of loss.
Fans of earlier installments of The Red Thread Saga will love this one, and fans of Wood’s other works will find that paying close attention and making connections pays off. Another wild ride from a master storyteller.
