The Taker [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Alma Katsu (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 6, 2011

True love can last an eternity . . . but immortality comes at a price. . . .

On the midnight shift at a hospital in rural Maine, Dr. Luke Findley is expecting another quiet evening of frostbite and the occasional domestic dispute. But the minute Lanore McIlvrae—Lanny—walks into his ER, she changes his life forever. A mysterious woman with a past and plenty of dark secrets, Lanny is unlike anyone Luke has ever met. He is inexplicably drawn to her . . . despite the fact that she is a murder suspect with a police escort. And as she begins to tell her story, a story of enduring love and consummate betrayal that transcends time and mortality, Luke finds himself utterly captivated.

Her impassioned account begins at the turn of the nineteenth century in the same small town of St. Andrew, Maine, back when it was a Puritan settlement. Consumed as a child by her love for the son of the town’s founder, Lanny will do anything to be with him forever. But the price she pays is steep—an immortal bond that chains her to a terrible fate for all eternity. And now, two centuries later, the key to her healing and her salvation lies with Dr. Luke Findley.

Part historical novel, part supernatural page-turner, The Taker is an unforgettable tale about the power of unrequited love not only to elevate and sustain, but also to blind and ultimately destroy, and how each of us is responsible for finding our own path to redemption.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“Readers won’t be able to tear their eyes away from Katsu’s mesmerizing tale.” —Starred Booklist

"Alchemy and love prove a volatile mix in Katsu's vividly imagined first novel, which toggles between the present and the past. While working the graveyard shift at a rural Maine hospital, Dr. Luke Findley discovers that patient Lanny McIlvrae has miraculous self-healing powers. Lanny then relates the incredible tale of her life: sent packing to Boston by her family in 1817 to give birth to her illegitimate child, she fell in with the entourage of Count Adair, a centuries-old alchemist who saved her life with an elixir of immortality. Decadent and domineering, Adair took Lanny as his mistress--a role she accepted until Adair's scheme to use her true love, Jonathan, to perpetuate his unnatural existence forced her to a desperate ruse to thwart his formidable magic powers. Katsu shows considerable skill in rendering a world where Adair's unspeakable evilness and Lanny's wild passion make the supernatural seem possible. The result is a novel full of surprises and a powerful evocation of the dark side of romantic love." —Publishers Weekly

“Alma Katsu’s The Taker is a frighteningly compelling story about those most human monsters—desire and obsession. It will curl your hair and keep you up late at night.” —Keith Donohue, bestselling author of The Stolen Child

“Alma Katsu’s searing tale of otherworldly lovers and eternal obsession will seduce you from page one. With its elegant prose and riveting plot, The Taker is as irresistible as the hauntingly beautiful, pleasure-seeking immortals who scorch its pages. A wicked, sensuous, shattering love story that I can’t recommend enough. You have to experience it for yourself!” —Kresley Cole, #1 New York Times bestselling author

"Alma Katsu's debut takes the reader on a spell-binding journey through time. This sensual tale of star-crossed love, betrayal and redemption is a rare and addictive treat. Pleasurable from page one." —Danielle Trussoni, New York Times bestselling author of Angelology

“The Taker is a sexy, dark romance. Alma Katsu’s tale of immortality and unrequited love covers hundreds of years but never strays from this question: What price are we willing to pay to completely possess another?” —Alexi Zentner, author of Touch

“A centuries-spanning epic that will keep you turning pages all night. This marvelous debut is a thinking person’s guilty pleasure.” —Scott Westerfeld, New York Times bestselling author of Leviathan

“Alma Katsu’s addictive tale of immortal love is brutal, wrenching, and ultimately moving. Gothic and richly detailed, The Taker it is an astonishing good read.” —Meg Waite Clayton, bestselling author of The Wednesday Sisters

“This is a great book. And by great, I mean, devastatingly so, like reading The Scarlet Letter, while riding a roller coaster, on acid. Seductive, daring, soaring, and ultimately gut-wrenching, The Taker is a lush, historical rendering of transcendent love, paranormal beings, and the depths of pain that can be felt by immortal hearts.” —Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

"It renews a genre...and makes it intimate again."

—Locus Magazine

About the Author

ALMA KATSU made her fiction debut in 2011 with The Taker. Born in Alaska and raised near Concord, Massachusetts, she holds a B.A. from Brandeis University and an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins writing program. She lives with her husband in Virginia. Visit her online at www.almakatsu.com.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 448 pages
• Publisher: Gallery Books (September 6, 2011)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439197059
• ASIN: B006W3YUDW
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #957,845 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Ms. Katsu's writing has been compared to that of early Anne Rice and Shirley Jackson. A former intelligence analyst, she is a graduate of the writing program at Johns Hopkins University, lives in the Washington, DC area, and counts Edgar Allan Poe and fairy tales among her influences. Visit her at www.almakatsu.com

TRUE LOVE CAN LAST FOREVER . . . BUT IMMORTALITY COMES AT A PRICE. When a young woman, a self-professed murderer, is found covered in blood and wandering around in the Maine wilderness, she is brought to a doctor in a nearby town to be evaluated before she is incarcerated. But once Luke Findley - a recently divorced physician - meets the strangely alluring Lanore McIlvrae and begins to hear her fantastical tale, one that stretches impossibly over two hundred years, he is drawn into her world of magic and danger.

So starts THE TAKER, the first book in a trilogy of novels about devotion and betrayal, beauty and cruelty, and the need for each to find her own path to redemption. The story continues with THE RECKONING and will conclude with THE DESCENT (coming May 2013).

The TAKER was an American Library Association-Booklist Top Ten Debut Novel of 2011.

"A wicked, sensuous, shattering love story that I can't recommend enough. You have to experience it for yourself!"--Kresley Cole

"Reminiscent of Anne Rice's Interview With The Vampire . . . an utterly readable blend of supernatural-powered fantasy, historical fiction, and existential horror." -- BN Book Club

"Enticing, sensual beyond any novel read in this genre in years" -- Horror World

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Needs a Sequel August 23, 2011

By MRo VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

This story centers around the main character, Lannie, who became immortal by means I won't mention (so I don't give away too much about the book).
The book begins near the end of the story, where a small town doctor (Luke), is uncharacteristically drawn to Lannie, an admitted murderess. While helping Lannie, she tells him her story, and so the book jumps from their present day lives, to Lannie's past which begins in the early 1800's.

Lannie tells her story beginning with her young, naive love for the unbelievably handsome Jonathon, to her relationship with the man who eventually enslaved her, and beyond. From the beginning, the story was extremely compelling. Although her narration is chock full of gripping details that will keep you glued to the page, it is still easy to follow the events and the few essential secondary characters. In fact, a couple of the secondary characters felt more like co-'main' characters to me.

This is not the kind of book I usually read, and due to the maliciousness of most of the characters, it did Not make me want to read more of it's type. UNLESS, of course there is a sequel to this one. Which brings me to my only complaint; I felt the book just ended kindof sudden without enough closure. There are loose ends, and if you read the book you'll know what I'm talking about. That being said, I can only hope that the author intends to write a sequel. I am already invested in this story, so I would definitely like to read more about the future of Lannie and her captor.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars A dark, dark tale of obsession September 10, 2011

By SD VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover

The Taker by Alma Katsu starts off with a sit-up-and-notice, can't-wait-to-see-what-happens-next beginning. A woman in the emergency room is a suspect for murder and begs the doctor to help her escape from the authorities. To get him to listen to her wild, improbable tale, she cuts herself in front of him with a scalpel and he watches as the cut heals itself in front of his eyes. Having caught his attention, she then tells him is the story of her true love for a beautiful man that has lasted for over two centuries.

The center, the axis on which Lanny's world and her motivation, and thus the entirety of The Taker, pivot is her unrequited love, Jonathan. So he must be the most fascinating creature in The Taker right? He must be to have captured her heart and soul so completely for centuries. Yet other than his unearthly beauty, which does become very important to the plot, I could see no reason for Lanny's dangerous obsession with Jonathan.

"I knew Jonathan had the ability to burn me up with the brilliance of his attention, like a flame to paper. A girl could be destroyed in the instant of divine love. The question was, was it worth it?

"You might ask if I loved Jonathan for his beauty, and I would answer: that is a pointless question, for his great, uncommon beauty was an irreducible part of the whole...if his beauty drew my eye from the first, I'll not apologize for it, nor will I apologize for my desire to claim Jonathan for my own. To behold such beauty is to wish to possess it; it's desire that drives every collector. And I was hardly alone. Nearly every person who came to know Jonathan tried to possess him. This was his curse, and the curse of every person who loved him. But it was like being in love with the sun: brilliant and intoxicating to be near, but impossible to keep to oneself. It was hopeless to love him and yet it was hopeless not to.

"And so I was afflicted by Jonathan's curse, caught up in his terrible attraction, and both of us were doomed to suffer for it."

He is a feckless player for most of The Taker, uncommonly good-looking, but nothing special. Towards the end, and I mean within the last two chapters do we see a Jonathan worth loving, worth dying for, worth risking your soul for. Unfortunately, we do not witness his evolution; just a before and after.

Nor do we see Lanny evolve either. She's besotted in the beginning and gets in trouble for it. She's besotted in the middle and gets in trouble for it. She's besotted in the end and gets in trouble for it. You have centuries to live, fortune to spend, and eternal youth... and yet you live an empty, purposeless life pining for a ne'er-do-well? It seems like such a waste, especially since she's an otherwise intelligent and feisty woman. Time and again her obsession with Jonathan leads her to the edge and over, all in the name of love.

A very dynamic, if not likeable, character is the villainous Adair who mysteriously comes into Lanore's and Jonathan's lives. Finding out the dangerous secrets he holds is more compelling than any scene with Jonathan, as he is the source of the dark magic central to the story. Adair possesses the key to immortality, which is never fully explained. However, since The Taker is the first of a trilogy, I'm sure we'll know more in the coming books.

The synopsis promises a dark, dark tale of obsession and The Taker does deliver; however - What ultimately made me want to stop reading - made me want to, though I didn't because I almost always finish what I start - are the sadistic sexual scenes. I'll concede that they could have been much more graphically written than they were, but by the middle of the book, I felt oversaturated by them. It could be a matter of personal taste but it was just too much depravity for me.

Towards the end, there were shocking, clever twists that I did not see coming- very well done if a bit rushed through.

25 of 29 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dark, Breath-Taking, Lush Novel September 6, 2011

By j

Format:Hardcover

First, I'd like to say there are a lot of reviews here for a book that hadn't even hit the US shelves yet. Some of these reviews are clearly written by well-read, open-minded folk, and these do the novel justice. There are also reviews on here by a few who claim to have been bored or completely appalled by the violent parts, but also, never even finished the story. I don't know about you, but being someone who actively seeks out a tale that elicits such intense feelings in either direction, I was chomping at the bit to get my hands on this book.

I have been waiting for a book like this to hit the shelves. It is a brilliant blend of historical fiction, psychological horror and tragic love story. Not wanting to ruin the story for anyone, I will sum up my two favorite qualities. One of the most wonderful aspects of this story was the characterization. The main character, Lanny, is so tragically in love with Jonathan, and unfortunately unable to accept that they cannot be together. Her deep obsession with him, and the crushing desperate attachment she has to him is so palpable, and so intense. I had trouble breathing while reading some of these passages, it was so easy to put yourself right there with her. If you love a heartbreaking tale of love that should never be, you'll adore this book. On a completely different level, the violent, cold-hearted characters in the story are equally satisfying as the doomed love story. The cruelty of Adair and his entourage is wonderfully written as it is actually frightening. It is tough to find a story these days that is truly horrifying and gut wrenching, and this story is very satisfying for someone looking to be delightfully disturbed. There is a large audience for straight horror fiction, but for those of us who continually search for that story that has the perfect balance of psychological horror and subversive eroticism, this hits the mark completely. I thank the twisted mind that thought up this lovely bit of fiction and-I can't wait for the sequel