Sheep Book Review: The Reckoning, by Alma Katsu

The Reckoning, by Alma Katsu, is book two of the Taker Trilogy. Katsu is a story teller, plain and simple; she can lay it all out there and let the reader sit back and enjoy the ride. While book two drifts away from the twisted darkness of the first in this trilogy it's equally compelling.

Plot:

Lanore McIlvrae is the kind of woman who will do anything for love. Including imprisoning the man who loves her behind a wall of brick and stone.

She had no choice but to entomb Adair, her nemesis, to save Jonathan, the boy she grew up with in a remote Maine town in the early 1800s and the man she thought she would be with forever. But Adair had other plans for her. He used his mysterious, otherworldly powers to give her eternal life, but Lanore learned too late that there was a price for this gift: to spend eternity with him. And though he is handsome and charming, behind Adair’s seductive façade is the stuff of nightmares. He is a monster in the flesh, and he wants Lanore to love him for all of time.

Now, two hundred years after imprisoning Adair, Lanore is trying to atone for her sins. She has given away the treasures she’s collected over her many lifetimes in order to purge her past and clear the way for a future with her new lover, Luke Findley. But, while viewing these items at an exhibit at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Lanore suddenly is aware that the thing she’s been dreading for two hundred years has caught up to her: Adair has escaped from his prison. He’s free— and he will come looking for her. And she has no idea how she will save herself.

Book Two picks up a few months after the end of The Taker (Book One) giving the reader a nice flow into the continuing saga. A rough road is in store for our leading lady Lanny and while she's forced to sit down and make some tuff decisions about the future I found her less engaging than in book one. Lanny simply lacked a little of that magic I felt for her in the beginning. She's still looking out for number 1 (herself) and those same old naive tendencies are lingering around, but overall the gal fell down a few notches for me.

Adair's back and man oh man is he a little ticked off about being locked up for the last two hundred years! He's got a whole new world to adjust to and loads to catch up on with the ongoings of his people but in true form he gets hip with the times. This guy was one dark and bad dude but now he's going through a change; can he grow past his wicked darkness to become a better man? And as the reader do you want to see that or is he the guy you just love to hate? I don't know just yet which way I stand on this issue of Adair but hopefully after book three hits I'll be able to come to a better conclusion one way or the other.

This trilogy is out of my normal reading realm but I still find quite a bit I like here. A darker story with more hate than love but maybe change for our lead characters is on the horizon.

Getting 3 and 1/2 'pass the hookah' Sheep

KD