The Taker by Alma Katsu
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST DEBUT NOVELS OF 2011 BY ALA BOOKLIST MAGAZINE 
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.
Quotes of The Taker by Alma Katsu
"You might ask if I love 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. It gave him his quiet confidence--which some might called aloof arrogance--and his easy, disarming way with the fairere sex.
And 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."
~ Lanore McIlvrae, The Taker (Pg. 24)
"But now with hard-earned wisdom, I understand how foolish we were to say such dangerous words to each other! We were arrogant and naive, thinking we knewwhat we felt was love. 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 in our souls, the way the tide rushes sand to fill in the crevices of a rocky shore"
~ Lanore McIlvrae, The Taker (Pg. 97)
"You shouldn't take his inconstancy to heart. He's not capable of such love, not for any woman. He's not capable on putting anyone else's needs before his own wants and desires. For instance, he told me it troubles him that he makes you so unhappy---'
~ Adair, The Taker (Pg. 97)
"That was when it hit me, what I had lost. Jonathan had always been there, even during the years when we were apart, and the resonant hum had always been in the back of my mind, a comfort. Now all, I had was a great, sucking void."
~ Lanore McIlvrae, The Taker (Pg. 430)
"I don't remember ending up at the highway, limping along the logging road to be found by the sheriff and his deputy. It wasn't until I'd been locked in the car with my hands cuffed that it all came back to me, that I realized all I wanted was to be back in the woods with him, to die with him so we could stay together forever."
~ Lanore McIlvrae, The Taker (Pg. 430)
1 comment:
This book was amazing!
Lucie
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