Stealing Kathryn is the seocnd book of "The Gatherers" series. As a fan of Jacquelyn Frank and having enjoyed the first book in this series, i was looking forward to this release. Unfortunately, I was not as pleased as I had hoped.
Stealing Kathryn is the story of Adrian, a "gatherer" from a world that thrives on energy and the human female that he "steals" from Earth. The gaterers live in a realm "beneath" that of Earth and they are not known to the humans. Each of the 6 gatherers from Beneath (as they call their home) gathers a different type of energy from various realms to bring back to their world to feed their starving people. The first book in this series did a very nice job of setting up the world with its' people, practices, beliefs, and politics and I had high hopes for this second installment.
Adrian collects energy from the nightmares and fears of humans and the constant exposure to this "evil" and "twisted" energy has warped both Adrian's emotions and his physical appearance. When Adrian enters Kathryn's dreams he finds a lot of raw energy and a person that captives him for reasons he cannot comprehend. He decides to steal her from Earth and keep her for himself.
The first 60 or so pages of this book bares absolutely no resemblance to the the first book in this series - in fact it seems to be a whole new world and series. Even the writing style seems completely different from Frank's other books (and I am a fan of her other series - Nightwalkers and Shadow Dwellers). When we finally get to the point that we see the world we were expecting and the return of some of the characters from the first book, we have already begun to see the changes in Adrian and have a solid picture of Katheryn's character. Unfortunately, Katheryn is portrayed as such a forgiving and gentle character that she is difficult to believe and almost comes across as weak. Although Adrian's character and situation would require a forgiving and understanding female, that doesn't mean that she has to come across as weak or a push-over.
The political atmosphere and coniving of the ruling body of Beneath is brought into play and the return of characters from the first book in the series helped to reinterest me in the story and find more of the enjoyment I was expecting to find in the book. This book didn't really further the overall story from a series perspective and the first 60 pages of the book really did nothing for me. The rest of the book was more like the Jacquelyn Frank I have come to enjoy reading and the reintroduction of some of the other gatherers and the council members finally ties this story to the series. As a fan of Frank, I will look forward to the next book in the series with the hope that it will be more exciting, but if I were to base my recommendation of Frank as an author or of the series on this one book, neither would be very high on my list. Overall, I was disappointed.
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