The Reckoning: Book 2 of the Taker Trilogy

Katsu’s seductive second book in her supernatural thriller trilogy picks up where her well-received debut, The Taker (2011), left off. The chance freeing of immortal alchemist Adair from his secret tomb in present-day Boston, nearly two centuries after immortal Lanore McIlvrae imprisoned him, disrupts Lanore’s comfortable life with her mortal lover, Luke Findley. Marooned in an unfamiliar world, the amoral alchemist soon recovers lost treasures and rebuilds his fortunes, allowing him to focus on the goal that truly matters to him—tracking down the woman responsible for imprisoning him, to break her to his will, and possess her forevermore. Lanore’s desire to abandon her wicked ways, doomed as it is, may mark her as unique among the immortals, but it also makes her uniquely vulnerable to her stalker. At times melodramatic and constrained by the limitations of a middle volume, this installment stays true to its author’s initial vision. Agent: Peter Steinberg, the Steinberg Agency. (June)