The Taking

A suspenseful story of a girl besieged by strange events, the novel explores what it means to confront the unknown.

An unnatural silence and a feeling that you are all alone in the world. . .

John and his daughter, Vera, grieve the loss of Vera's mother, who mysteriously disappeared when Vera was a baby. As John struggles to raise his troubled daughter, he dismisses connections between his wife’s disappearance and Vera’s bizarre dreams of otherworldly creatures.

But when he finds Vera unconscious, lying in a ring of scorched trees, he begins to believe that a mysterious outside force is controlling her fate and his.

The Taking is a suspenseful story depicting a loving but difficult relationship between a father and daughter, amid the strange events that underlie their everyday life in a small New England town. 

Dona Masi is a writer and editor whose short fiction and articles are used in reading and writing assessments throughout the United States. Her articles about the arts, the environment, and current affairs have appeared in Foster’s Daily Democrat, Seacoast Newspapers, and Portsmouth Press. She is also a playwright, and two of her plays were performed at the Provincetown Theater Company.

In her fiction, as in her playwriting, she loves bringing relatable characters to life and depicting them in all their heroic and flawed humanity. Her debut novel, The Taking, was inspired by her interest in UFO folklore and reports of alien encounters. With a B.A. in Liberal Studies from Vermont College, she earned her M.A. in Liberal Studies from the University of New Hampshire. She lives with her husband in Dover, New Hampshire.