Book review – The Taker by Alma Katsu

Have you ever loved someone so much that you’d do anything for them?

When Dr Luke Findley turns up to his hospital shift in the small town of St Andrews, Maine, he’s expecting just another evening of minor injuries and domestic disputes. But instead, Lanore McIlvrae walks into his life – and changes it forever. For Lanny is a woman with a past…

Lanny McIlvrae is unlike anyone Luke has ever met. Hers is a story of love and betrayal that defies time and transcends mortality – and cannot end until Lanny’s demons are finally put to rest. Her two hundred years on this earth have seen her seduced by both decadence and brutality – but through it all she has stayed true to the one true love of her life. Until now.

The Taker is something a little bit different in the paranormal romance genre. It’s an immortal love story but, for a refreshing change, there are no vampires in this book. And in contrast to the majority of immortal love stories I’ve read, the driving force behind most of the action in this novel is unrequited love which makes for a story that is both dark and gripping.

The story starts in the present day as Lanore McIlvrae (Lanny) is brought into hospital under arrest, having confessed to murder. As Dr Luke Findley attempts to treat her she reveals the secret of her immortality and sets a chain of events into action which will change Luke’s life forever. To gain Luke’s trust, Lanny begins to tell her story and the reader is taken back to Maine in 1809 as a young Lanny first sets eyes on Jonathan St Andrew, the object of her affections for all of her life so far.

I loved how this book immediately prompted lots of questions in my mind; the main one of which was how did Lanny go from average daughter in a poor family in Maine to being immortal and ending up back in the town if St Andrew 200 years later. The answer takes the majority of the book to tell and kept me turning the pages to the very end.

Lanny and her immortality have a long and complex back story and the gothic cover and black page edges of the book compliment the narrative perfectly. This is a story which combines a love that lasts over two hundred years with elements of deception, betrayal, jealousy and at times brutal actions from it’s characters.

The story moves between three key time periods; the present day, Lanny’s early life in the first decades of the 1800′s and the fourteenth century, where we begin to learn the origin of Lanny’s immortal state. The majority of the novel is set in the earlier time periods making this as much a work of historical fiction as it is paranormal romance. I enjoyed the historical detail, particularly in the first part of the book covering Lanny’s childhood as a settler in Maine.

As Lanny and Jonathon grow up, her affections for him deepen but can they ever be more than just friends? Jonathon’s position as a member of the founding family of St Andrew means that there are certain expectations upon him, making Lanny an unsuitable choice for a wife. I have to admit that I didn’t warm to Jonathon particularly; his treatment of Lanny is at best unfair and at times calculated and selfish, preying on her deep affection for him. And this is the crux of the story – Jonathon and Lanny’s early relationship causes an ever escalating and often destructive set of events that traps them in a never ending story of love and obsession.

Lanny as main narrater is the only person to tell her story in the first person perspective and despite the fact that I didn’t agree with all of her actions, I liked her as a character and found her story and it’s consequences absorbing. The cast widens as Lanny finds herself in Boston, penniless and alone where she is ‘rescued’ by rich Adair and his entourage. Adair’s story is again one of love and loss and Adair is one of the most complex and wicked villains I’ve come across in a while. A word of warning – there are some quite horrific scenes depicted in the book which for me made for hard reading at times but despite this, I couldn’t put it down and The Taker is one of those books that has you thinking about the characters and their actions long after you’ve finished it.

This is Alma Katsu’s debut and a strong debut it is; the characters have depth, the story is well thought out with a twist that I didn’t see coming and I loved the historical elements. The Taker is the first book in a trilogy and I was pleased that it  didn’t end on a cliffhanger. There is plenty of scope for the next book to explore more of the detail of Lanny’s 200 year existence and also for finding out what happened to the others who lived in Adair’s house and I’m already looking forward to the next part.

5/5

The Taker is released on 14th April and I’d like to thank Ruth from Random House for sending me a copy to review.

You can find out more about Alma Katsu and The Taker at: http://almakatsu.com/ and look out for an interiew with Alma coming next week!