The Taker Book Review *Alma Katsu*

Debut author, Alma Katsu has really hit a home run with The Taker. This book is so anti-love, a true pessimist’s delight. The Taker shows with Lanore Mcllvrae, the main protagonist, how falling in love with someone who doesn’t love you in the same way back can destroy your life. In the case of Lanore, Alma has created a more sensationalized example, using supernatural elements to prove that love can be not only destructive but can become an unhealthy obsession that will eat away at a person until they’re a lifeless husk.

Since I’m a pessimist when it comes to love, especially romantic love (which I guess is ironic because not only do I love reading romance but I write it), The Taker really spoke to me on so many levels. I ached for Lanore because of the cruel and selfish actions, not only from the man she has adored her entire life, but from a reprehensible individual who gives her the means to have everything she ever desires, if only she will love him back with her entire soul. At the same time I felt Lanore was much like a victim in a horror movie. You know it won’t end well for them as you watch them take actions that will lead to their demise, where the killer is hiding in the basement, waiting for their intended victim to investigate the strange noise they heard.

The Taker is much like a horror movie where love is the crazed serial killer and its victims are those who fall in love and want to be loved by that person they fixate on. Unfortunately the object of their fixation is responsible for their ruin.

This story begins in present day with Dr. Luke Findley. Luke works the overnight shift at the hospital in the backwater town of St. Andrew in the northernmost corner of Maine. Luke is divorced, hardly ever sees his children and is living in the run down house his dead parents once owned. One night a young woman is brought it. She looks barely legal and is accused of murdering a man in the woods. The local authorities want Luke to make certain she’s well (she’s covered in blood and wounded) before they bring her to jail and question her. The woman, Lanny, tells Luke her name and there’s a justifiable reason she had to kill the man she was with. She then cuts herself with a scalpel and before Luke’s eyes she heals. She begs him to help her escape and against his better judgment he does that. Luke wants answers, which Lanny will give him. Both go on a road trip where Lanny tells him of her past and how she’s over two-hundred years old.

Lanny once lived with her family in a village that Luke knows as St. Andrew. The earliest memory Lanny has is of the year 1809 when she’s twelve and realizes she has fallen in love with Jonathan St. Andrew, the son of the richest man of the village. Lanny dreams she’ll marry Jonathon, but he thinks of her more as a friend, although she receives her first kiss from him. They become close, but Jonathon turns to other women for comfort, even impregnating a married woman who ends up killing herself, which Lanny feels responsible for. Lanny continues to wait for Jonathon to come to his senses and admit how much he loves her. Jonathon eventually turns to Lanny for physical pleasure and the outcome is devastating. Lanny ends up pregnant, but Jonathon is engaged to another woman and can’t marry her. With no other choice, Lanny is banished to a convent in Boston to give birth, where she will have to give up her child.

Lanny reaches Boston, unchaperoned and never reaches the convent. She ends up being taken, or rather coerced, by a woman and a man of means. Lanny makes another big mistake and ends up at a house of horrors, where the master of the domain there, Adair, a nobleman, decides to keep Lanny with him in his eccentric menagerie or his family as he calls them. A series of unfortunate events, thanks to Adair leaves Lanny near death. Adair grants her the gift of immortality, which she accepts.

Lanny has become like Alice who fell down the rabbit hole. Adair’s world is full of fiendish sexual delights that Lanny can’t help but enjoy. Because she has nowhere else to turn, she allows Adair to tutor her and become her protector. She becomes his favorite and wants her love all for himself. But she can’t give him what he wants because her heart belongs to Jonathon. And that’s when Adair plans for Lanny to have her heart’s desire and orders her to bring Jonathon into the fold. If she doesn’t, the consequences could be disastrous not only for her, but for Jonathon as well. She’ll have to pay a major price, but when all is said and done she’ll finally have Jonathon like she always wanted.

The Taker is a heartbreaking read with unredeemable characters because of their faults and wants. There’s a great deal of gloom and doom within these pages, mainly from Lanny whose one stupid move was falling for Jonathon, who is ruled by his cock. He’s the worst kind of male, a weak human being who longs for sexual gratification regardless of the consequences of his actions. Adair, the villain of the piece, is more insightful on why he does the things that he does. He makes no apologies and embraces all that he is. He’s very manipulative and uses this form of oily persuasion to get what he wants, especially from Lanny.

I can see why Jonathon wasn’t dedicated to Lanny. She’s pretty average in both looks and personality and doesn’t have that appeal Jonathon is searching for. He treats Lanny more like a faithful dog, a pet he plays with until he grows bored. I couldn’t really understand why Adair was so enamored with her either. And, the modern day romance with Luke and Lanny seems weak and lacking, especially when we see Lanny’s passion for Jonathon and her at times spectacular life with Adair.

The Taker may seem heavy on the sex, but it’s written in almost a subdued way with a few throwaway lines here and there. The overall sexual dynamics between the characters are not the important thing here, but more for the psychological and emotional aspect when two join their bodies together to express their hunger for the flesh or a simple desire to be close to another.

The Taker will most likely have many different opinions on what has been accomplished here. It ends with a possible sequel, and when all is said and done, nothing has really been learned, mainly with Lanny. She has an understanding of her situation and the outcome of her actions, but I can see her reverting back to where she once began, searching for acceptance and love in all the wrong places.

Perhaps the best way to explain what The Taker is all about is straight from the words of the author:

“Love can be a cheap emotion, lightly given, though it didn’t seem so to me at the time. Looking back, I know we were only filling in the holes of our souls, the way the ride rushes sand to fill in the crevices of a rocky shore. We-or maybe it was just I-bandaged our needs with what we declared was love. But, eventually, the tide draws out what it has swept in.”

Makes you think how damaging and ridiculous falling in love can be, which I believe has been accomplished  with The Taker. (Gallery Books)

Final Grade: B+ 

A few other The Taker reviews:

Paperback Dolls
Scully Love Promo
Tethered Mommy