Book Review: Erin McCarthy’s The Taking

I received this book for free from the library in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Source: the library

The Taking

by

Erin McCarthy

paranormal romance in a paperback edition that was published by Berkley on January 5, 2010 and has 320 pages.

Explore it on Goodreads or Amazon


Other books by this author which I have reviewed include High Stakes, My Immortal, Bit the Jackpot, An Enchanted Season, Fallen, Bad Boys of Summer, Bled Dry, Flat-Out Sexy, Sucker Bet, Hard and Fast, Hot Finish, When Good Things Happen to Bad Boys, First Blood, Slow Ride, The Chase, The Night Before Christmas, Out of the Light, and into the Shadows, Jacked Up, A Date with the Other Side, Heiress for Hire, Bad Boys in Black Tie, True, Seeing is Believing, Believe, Shatter, Sweet, Burn, Gone with the Ghost, Murder Drama with Your Llama

Third in the Seven Deadly Sins paranormal-romance series. The couple focus is on Felix Leblanc and Regan Henry and is based in New Orleans.

My Take

Well, third time around…I’m finally noticing that each of the stories in this series involves some sort of written communication with the last half of the 19th century in New Orleans. In Taking, the communication is a journal kept by Camille Comeaux for the last few months of her life.

This was an enjoyable read although not as exciting as the first two. I think I kept expecting Beau to be more aggressive in his anger since he was such an ass while they were married although I am surprised that Regan would accept his chocolates…I’d’a trashed ’em. And I’m a chocoholic! It was also just too easy for Regan and Felix to get together. We never do learn what it is that Regan does other than raise funds to restore cemeteries; that she has a fascination for the tombs, headstones, and statues that provide an homage to dead loved ones. I did enjoy Felix’s attitude toward security and business; I think I envied him.

The Story

Greed. The anger of a young mulatto boy for his father’s family. For the humiliation his mother must endure to put a roof over their head, food in their mouths. Felix Leblanc jumps in without thought in a deal with the devil, Alcroft Tradd, to save his mother and provide him with the pleasures of life, an immortal life. What matter if some portion of everything he acquires must be given to the demon?

Until Camille Comeaux appears in his life, or rather, disappears from it. In the few months remaining in her life after Camille loses her family to yellow fever, Camille spirals downward until that fatal night. A night in which Felix realizes that money does not bring happiness. That his greed has condemned a young woman. A night for which he pays year in and year out, decade after decade. Realizing that all he can do is take, all any woman has ever done for or with him has been take.

Until Regan Henry. A passionate, caring woman who seems to want him. Now if only he can escape the notice of her about-to-be-ex-husband, his master. The demon.

The Characters

Regan Henry Alcroft starts as a married woman. Married to a man who puts her down constantly. Chris Davidson is Regan’s best friend and sounding board and in his own relationship with Nelson.

Felix Leblanc is over 150 years old with long history as a voodoo priest and a desire to please women.

Beau Alcroft is an attorney and a demon. Felix’s master. And he has an ulterior motive for marrying a woman for whom he has so little regard.

Camille Comeaux is the last surviving member of the Comeaux family. Her desperate desire to be reunited with her family causes her to shake off societal expectations and satisfy her own needs. It is Camille’s home that Regan buys after her separation.

The Cover and Title

The cover is an interpretation of Camille naked and looking out through the french door in her bedroom at a brooding, gray sky, her lower half swathed in the purple drapery hanging alongside the doors. The title is appropriate as Felix is resigned to an eternal future of everyone Taking and never giving.

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