I saw the author of The Taker at Festival of the Book this past week, got my hands on a copy of her work and gobbled it up in a few days.  What a lesson in how you don’t have to calibrate your work to the market provided that you really know how to grip readers with your story telling.

For The Taker is a paranormal story, yet it is a story of immortality not vampires, etc.  It is an erotic story chastely told.  (Isn’t that the oddest thing?)  Not a romance, but preoccupied with romance.  The author knows all this, of course, and must keep putting the book out there with all these reaching out and then snatching back descriptions.

At any rate, though this novel is a stand alone, there’s a little detail dropped into the end that lets us know this story isn’t over.  Indeed there are two more books to come.  

Writer’s would admire the story’s ability to raise a reader’s expectations.  What happen’s next? is the question that kept me turning pages quickly.  I remember having a terrible time putting the book down at one point, even though I had to go do something else that had to get done that day. 

At the panel the author said that everyone was having a horrible time comparing the book to anything else.  I didn’t think it would be that hard, but I’ve tried and I have to admit I’m stumped.  It’s a little bit like Interview with a Vampire–except no vampires.  Someone is dead at the beginning of the book and Katsu’s skill is such that you keep turning the pages to discover how it all came about.