The Taker

(Ama­zon, Goodreads)

by Alma Katsu

(Ama­zon, Goodreads, Web­site)

Pub­lished by Gallery Books, Sep­tem­ber 2011

Dr. Luke Find­ley is on the mid­night shift in the emer­gency room when the police bring in a young woman. Few strangers come to this remote town in north­ern­most Maine in the win­ter, and this stranger is accused of a bizarre crime: killing a man and leav­ing his body in the Great North Woods. The young woman, Lanny, tells the doc­tor that she and the man in the woods lived in this town at its found­ing two hun­dred years ago, until fate sen­tenced them to an eter­nity of unhap­pi­ness until they atone for their sins.

The man in the woods is Jonathan, son of the town’s founder, and the love of Lanny’s life. After Lanny com­mits a ter­ri­ble sin in the hope of claim­ing Jonathan for her own, she’s ban­ished from town and sent to Boston to serve her penance. In Boston, she falls in with a beguil­ing yet fright­en­ing man, Adair, who has oth­er­worldly pow­ers, includ­ing the abil­ity to con­fer immor­tal­ity. His world is one of unknown sen­sual plea­sures and seem­ingly lim­it­less power, but at what price?

Adair wants to add Jonathan to the col­lec­tion of treach­er­ous courtiers who do his bid­ding (but for unknown ends) and sends Lanny back to Maine to col­lect him. It seems like the answer to Lanny’s deep­est desire—to be with Jonathan forever—but once Jonathan has joined Adair’s pack of immor­tals, she sees that Adair is not what he seems and his inten­tions toward Jonathan are far worse than she imag­ined. And now it is up to her to save her beloved—and herself—from a ter­ri­ble fate designed to last for all eternity.

The Taker is a story of the power of love to cor­rupt, to drive us to do ter­ri­ble things in its name, and the courage it takes to sac­ri­fice in the name of love and ulti­mately be wor­thy of absolution.

This review may come across as gush­ing, but if you haven’t read this book, you are doing your­self a dis­ser­vice.  I met Katsu at the BEA in 2010 long before the book came out and had the ARC sit­ting on my shelf for far too long.  I picked it up and flew through it.

As some reviews of this book have expanded upon, there are some seri­ously vio­lent scenes and activ­i­ties that will dis­turb some read­ers.  How­ever, these scenes are not there to be gra­tu­itous, but to elicit the extreme emo­tions that Katsu impresses upon the reader.  The reader is taken from the heart wrench­ing tale of young love; a love that we rarely expe­ri­ence out­side of  a book and yet one we all crave, to the intense yet bru­tal extremes as Lanny is taken in by Count Adair and his entourage, and finally to her real­iza­tion of what she’s done and the woman she has become after many years finally tak­ing respon­si­bil­ity for the choices she made.

Part his­tor­i­cal fic­tion, part psy­cho­log­i­cal hor­ror, a bit of para­nor­mal cir­cum­stance and all love story, The Taker will draw you in and run you through an emo­tional roller coaster that you don’t want to get off.  You can­not wait for the next page to reveal yet another rea­son to cheer for Lanny, even when she makes a deci­sion that seems unforgivable.

The char­ac­ters, Lanny, Jonathan, Count Adair, and Luke are so well-​​developed, it’s hard to believe this is a first book.  The love Lanny has for Jonathan, which turns to obses­sion, some­times blinds her, but it doesn’t feel con­trived and her intense feel­ings are at times almost pal­pa­ble to the reader.  And the warmth felt from the love side, is starkly and per­fectly con­trasted by the vio­lence expe­ri­enced from Adair and his cold-​​hearted entourage.  Adair’s back story is del­i­cately crafted to fit seam­lessly into the tale.

I can’t stress enough that you should pick up this book.  A book that can make the reader feel such an array of emo­tions comes along rarely. It’s been a long time since I felt this strongly about a story that is both beau­ti­ful and tragic.  The last time I felt this way was when I read The Gar­goyle and if you haven’t read that one either, then I sug­gest you get your­self to a book­store and pick them both up.  Per­haps this will be con­tin­ued in a sequel; one that I will jump at the chance to read.

This post is a selec­tion for the Peril the First por­tion of the 6^th annual R.eaders I.mbibing P.eril (R.I.P.) Chal­lenge. To find out more infor­ma­tion and/​or to sign up to par­tic­i­pate, please fol­low the link. If you are inter­ested in more books or films that are being reviewed as part of this event, please visit the R.I.P. VI Review Site. (This para­graph bor­rowed from Carl V. who is host­ing R.I.P. VI)