02/20/2026 Candace Reviews: THE TRYST by L. Marie Wood

The Tryst

The Red Thread Saga

Book One

By L. Marie Wood

The Tryst is not your typical love story, in fact, it is not typical in any way. It’s a love story that transcends all others. It’s what happens when the universe lines up, when fates collide, when three souls meet and merge and become one. It’s yearning made tangible, longing fulfilled, inhibitions turned to dust, and the knowledge that you have finally found what you’ve been missing your entire life.

The Tryst is a love story that will leave you breathless and aching in a way that you didn’t know you could. It’s written to consume you, to draw you in so deeply that you feel as if you are part of the story. The instant connections, the friendship being built, the love that is blossoming, the confusion, and acceptance, the final surrender; Wood beautifully pens the entire experience of falling in love as the uncontrollable spiral of anxiety, giddiness, doubt, fear, and need that it truly is.

But look deeper, there is so much more here to unpack, this is just the beginning, and Wood gives us just enough to know that this journey is not even close to being over. You need this book.

She calls it slip-stream. I call it must read…no, it’s mandatory reading, if you read nothing else this year, read this, and all that will follow.

About the Book

A moment in time… insignificant and fleeting for most, but for Nicole, Mark, and Eric, it is life-altering. Three strangers meet in a town they don’t know in a place they hadn’t expected to end up only to find that they are exactly where they were supposed to be… again.

Love always finds a way. Through space and time, past and future, through lifetimes and storylines they were destined to find each other, love each other, lose each other – coordinates and weapons, scenarios and demographics be damned. A malfunction, to be sure. But when Ryan tries to tinker with his project, a weapon the likes of which has never been seen in all of the Galactic Collaborative, he finds out just how inexorable their link is… and how insidious.

The first book of a slipstream series that will challenge the way you think about love, life, connection, and purpose, The Tryst will catch you in its whirlwind and never let you go. Each book in The Red Thread Saga will combine of mixture of urban fantasy, mystery, thriller, psychological horror, action, suspense, science fiction elements in differing measures, always with romance as an undercurrent.

Love always finds a way.

But sometimes that way is paved with bones.

The Tryst is available NOW from Mocha Memoirs Press. Grab your copy, because The Red Thread Saga is releasing fast! You can also grab a copy on Amazon, but please support Mocha Memoir Press if you can—yay for Black women-owned presses, AND they do four-day shipping, so you’ve got no excuse!