“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