JMW: Yes, I was going to ask you isn’t it coming out soon? People will be able to know the secret very, very soon.Īlma Katsu: Right. But the things that he does are very magical, and you don’t understand really what’s going on, where he gets his power and why he can do the things he can do until you read the third book, The Defense, which is coming out in January. He considers himself a man of science, not a man of magic. And the villain, who sort of evolves into a hero by the end of the series, the story he tells himself is that he’s an alchemist, that he has these magical abilities because of what he’s learned through alchemy. You tell a story to yourself and that sort of makes you who you are. The stories that you sort of even know about yourself. But one of the themes of it is that all you know from life are stories. There’s a magic that runs through the books, but the secret behind the magic isn’t really explained until the very end of all three books. Alchemy, as you read the series, as you go along, alchemy isn’t really even what’s happening here.

Why did you go for alchemy in the trilogy instead of witchcraft?Īlma Katsu: Well, that’s a funny thing. That, of course, spooky springs to mind, Salem. And it was bound to seep in to any story that I told. Just grew up around cemeteries and, you know, ghost stories and all that sort of thing. I think the supernatural part came because I grew up in a very, very spooky little town in Maynard, Massachusetts. But then the story just grew out of there. And Jonathan, a little cattish man that she falls in love with. I got the idea for the main characters, Lenore, the woman who lives for love basically, falls disastrously in love with the wrong man and it ruins her life. I want to say the characters came first, because that’s really what drove me to write the series. Which came first, the characters or their paranormal world?Īlma Katsu: Well, I’d have to say they probably came together.

The Taker Trilogy is a wonderful mixture of mainstream, romance and fantasy elements.

Welcome, Alma.Īlma Katsu: Thank you for having me, Jean Marie. With me today, at One More Page Books, is Alma Katsu, the international best-selling author of the Taker Trilogy. Alma Katsu, Author of The Taker Trilogy – Exclusive Interview

Alma katsu the taker trilogy