What is the secret of The TAKER?

Lanny, the heroine of The TAKER, admits in the first chapter that she is immortal, but she hasn’t a clue as to how this is possible. It’s this mystery – how is it possible for someone to become immortal? – that helps drive The TAKER.

Lanny grew up at a time and in a place where religion played a large part in daily life and so it’s natural for her to look to religion for an answer to what’s happened to her. Adair, the man who wields the power, claims that it’s not God but science – knowledge of the mysteries of existence – that enables him to grant eternal life. There was a time when such knowledge was thought of as magic and the keepers of such knowledge were persecuted – a time, Adair knows, that may come again.

It’s the conflation of religion, science and magic that form the mystery at the heart of The TAKER. What we’re really talking about are belief systems, how you look at the mysteries of life, how you choose to think of them. Consider, for example, that there was a time when religious beliefs were held as scientific truths – for instance, that the earth was flat and was circled by the sun. Or that some view religion as mere versions of pagan rituals that have been with us since the beginning of time. Or that some people keep science as their religion and will have no other faith in their lives. So, where does one believe system start and the other end?

I’ll tell you now that the answer is not revealed in The TAKER, but if you stay with the series for the next two books, tentatively titled The RECKONING and The DESCENT, the mystery will be explained.