Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Taken
    Taken
    Taken
    Ebook123 pages2 hours

    Taken

    By Norah McClintock

    3.5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Two girls have recently disappeared near the town where Stephanie lives. She is concerned but is sure that it could never happen to her. But then it does. Tied up and alone far from home, she manages to escape her captor and run for her life. But she is in the middle of nowhere, with no food, no shelter and no way home. And worst of all, she has run away before, so she is sure that the police will not take her disappearance seriously. She will need to save herself, calling on lessons learned from her grandfather and an inner strength she never thought she had.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOrca Book Publishers
    Release dateOct 1, 2009
    ISBN9781554695461
    Taken
    Author

    Norah McClintock

    Norah McClintock won the Crime Writers of Canada's Arthur Ellis Award for crime fiction for young people five times. She wrote more than sixty YA novels, including contributions to Seven (the series), the Seven Sequels and the Secrets series.

    Read more from Norah Mc Clintock

    Related to Taken

    Related ebooks

    YA Social Themes For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      “Wicked Fox” Is An Engrossing – If Convoluted – YA Fantasy

      Aug 22, 2019

      Kat Cho’s debut novel “Wicked Fox” is a little complicated, but the poignantly rendered family relationships and fantasy drama are worth the ride.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Musings On My Father

      Aug 8, 2022

      Musings On My Father
      5 min read

    • Article

      Festival

      Sep 15, 2018

      My husband, who loved festivals, who was a great fan of festivals, wanted to get to the square in time for the first band at eleven o’clock. From bed, the dog and I watched him dress. He tried on various T-shirts, declaring some of them too tight and

      13 min read

    • Article

      Daughters’ Bodies

      Dec 1, 2019

      WHEN I’M about to go away to college, my grandmother dies and my mother silently puts herself up for adoption. LOOKING FOR SOMEONE TO ADOPT ME: Kind, lonely, beautiful woman in her 50s. Dead husband. No children. Cooks and cleans. 4’11 and 90 lbs. Gu

      20 min read

    • Article

      Dognapped

      Mar 24, 2021

      Dognapped
      5 min read

    • Article

      Ribs, Muscle, Bone

      Jan 7, 2020

      Ribs, Muscle, Bone
      10 min read

    • Article

      Lockdown

      Aug 31, 2020

      You keep a secret safe, wrapped up in the back of a drawer in your mind, all tied up in metaphorical ribbon and string, for 14 years. And in the space of three days, it unravels. How did that happen? I’ll tell you how. I was up a ladder, that’s how.

      5 min read

    • Article

      Without A Trace

      Jan 5, 2023

      Heading to my room and closing the door, I lay down on my bed and took a letter out of my pocket. Poring over the words on the page, I read it over and over again. It was from my mum, Tina, 32. Having had me at just 19, life had been difficult for he

      5 min read

    • Article

      Vanished

      Apr 20, 2023

      Vanished
      5 min read

    • Article

      Two Poems

      Mar 1, 2019

      It’s 1 AM on the east coast and midnight in Iowawhen the Russian lawyer with a house in Newarkand an office in the city sends me an e-mail:“Your writing is so emotional yet so detached.It’s wonderful.” I respond without delay:“Dear Oleg, I don’t know

      3 min read

    • Article

      Meet the MODERN GRANNIES

      Oct 6, 2020

      Meet the MODERN GRANNIES
      4 min read

    • Article

      Carrot Legs

      Sep 12, 2019

      Carrot Legs
      20 min read

    • Article

      How Postcards From My Mother Helped Me Survive Childhood

      Mar 3, 2017

      For years, my mother wrote to me every day. I’d been sent away to boarding school and for the first weeks was forbidden to call home­. I was eleven. This was just before mobile phones came beeping and clicking into the lives of everyday people. I di

      4 min read

    • Article

      I Followed My Mom To Prison And To A Degree

      May 25, 2018

      As I walked across the stage, I couldn’t believe I was finally graduating. I’d spent the past three years at St. Francis College in Brooklyn finishing my bachelor’s degree in Sociology. My family was in the crowd, screaming loudly. My mom and my gran

      5 min read

    • Article

      Counter Waves

      Oct 23, 2020

      Counter Waves
      8 min read

    • Article

      Q + A

      Nov 28, 2022

      Q + A
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Mourners

      Jul 13, 2017

      I spent years of my life thinking I would be a member of a room like that by dying. That I would be the thing no one was talking about, all anyone was thinking. I spent years imagining what those rooms might be like with me not there. The post The Mo

      3 min read

    • Article

      Laugh A Little

      Nov 20, 2020

      A man is walking down the street when he comes across a body lying on thesidewalk. He gets out his cellphone and calls the police. The officer asks him where he’s calling from and the guy replies, “I’m on Sycamore Drive.” “How do you spell that?” the

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Drawings That Trapped A Paedophile

      Oct 18, 2022

      Sitting cross-legged on the living room floor after school one day, I giggled away as I watched my favourite cartoons. But when I heard the sound of footsteps behind me, my laughter suddenly stopped. ‘Come sit with me,’ my stepdad David, then 32, whi

      4 min read

    • Article

      Come with Me

      Dec 1, 2022

      Come with Me
      12 min read

    • Article

      Welcome to Reliance

      Dec 1, 2021

      Welcome to Reliance
      11 min read

    • Article

      Character Studies

      May 18, 2021

      Character Studies
      5 min read

    • Article

      I Never Called Her Momma

      Sep 13, 2023

      I Never Called Her Momma
      39 min read

    • Article

      Crime Wave

      May 10, 2019

      Crime Wave
      13 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Taken

    3.5/5

    48 ratings14 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      Library Summary: “Two girls have recently disappeared near the town where Stephanie lives. She is concerned but is sure that it could never happen to her. But then it does. Tied up and alone far from home, she manages to escape her captor and run for her life. But she is in the middle of nowhere, with no food, no shelter and no way home. And worst of all, she has run away before, so she is sure that the police will not take her disappearance seriously. She will need to save herself, calling on lessons learned from her grandfather and an inner strength she never thought she had.”I really liked this book. It wasn’t as good as I thought it would be, but it wasn’t that bad either.McClintock does a good job at giving us a look inside the teenage mind. Especially since Stephanie a) lost her father and b) is angry that her mom is dating a man that Stephanie doesn’t like. McClintock understands what a teenager in this situation would think and do so well it’s as if she went through it herself.McClintock was able to write the book so well that I was able to form a picture of what was happening in my mind. I was able to put myself in Stephanie’s shoes. I was able to imagine what I would have felt if I had been in the same situation as Stephanie.I recommend this to anyone who likes kidnapping stories.
    • 4/5
      References to serial killers, abductions, and missing teens, all in the first few pages, are sure-fire ingredients to hook young adult readers. Even though the author knows just what her readers are looking for - suspense and danger - "Taken" doesn't always deliver. The abduction of Stephanie happens too early in the novel and seems somewhat contrived. As well, readers may feel somewhat misled as the storyline veers more towards a wilderness survival adventure, rather than the original premise of unravelling a criminal case. However, McClintock does manage to tackle several themes related to change that teens will be able to connect with, including the loss of a parent, moving to a new home, and adjusting to new relationships.
    • 4/5
      It won’t happen to me is what Stephanie thinks when she takes a short cut home even though two girls have gone missing from her hometown, but it does. Told in the first person narrative, readers are taken on a harrowing journey as they experience Stephanie’s fear when she awakens, tied up and drowsy from the drugs that the kidnapper has used to subdue her. Due to her quick thinking and survival skills taught to her by her grandfather, Stephanie escapes and survives several days lost in the woods. Once home, Stephanie is forced to endure questions from officers who are not sure she was just another runaway telling stories to get back at her widowed mother who has just become engaged to her boyfriend, Gregg. The fast paced plot will interest the reluctant teen reader.
    • 2/5
      I think this was a okay book, because the only twist to the book was the end most of the book you could guess what was going to happen. Orca books are short and easy book to read thats why I like them.
    • 3/5
      I wasn't sure that this book would be my cup of tea, being aimed at teen readers and all. As it turned out, the story was quite good and Stephanie's struggle to get back home was very compelling. My only real complaint would be with the resolution, which felt a little abrupt. Otherwise it was definitely an enjoyable reading experience.
    • 3/5
      This was a rather predictable book. It reminded me of Stephen King's The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon without the rich desciption. There was a little twist, but not much of one; it seemed to be mostly a cautionary tale about fighting with your parent(s) and mistrusting a possible step-parent. I think it will appeal to some young ladies, but not many males.
    • 1/5
      I usually really like this author... have read almost everything she's written, and I found this book SO disappointing I almost couldn't finish it. It was slow, and repetitive while the character was making her way back to civilization, and it was so predictable that I knew who it was by then end of the second chapter. Hopefully, McClintock was just having an off day, because this was a real stinker... (either that or she's lending her name to a child to encourage them to write....) Disappointing to say the least!
    • 4/5
      An interesting story of teenage survival and emotional upheaval (I don't want to say angst - but that overworked word does fit!) Stephanie fights with her mother, and and rebelliously decides to defy her mother's warnings about a serial killer in the neighborhood. In the aftermath of her abduction, she must rely on her own resources to escape and find her way home. And then she faces the further trauma of official disbelief. The ending twist was satisfying.I found this book very interesting. It is almost a one-character story. Stephanie is the only character in high relief. All the others seem to be paler, somehow. The story is told in first person - which might contribute to my impression. The author captures very well the adolescent mind of Stephanie, her anger over her father's death, her striking back at her mother, her dislike of her mother's boyfriend. Stephanie is pretty typical, in a very typical situation - but she shows lots of resourcefulness and strength when faced with a very atypical circumstances. I enjoyed the book very much
    • 3/5
      This book would be a good choice for a student who does not like to read much. It was short and to the point. An almost embarassingly quick read. But it was fun. The plot was engaging and the stories about Stephanie's grandfather were well done. It is rare to see stories that present elders as people to learn from and this was a refreshing change.I wouldn't read it again, but then, I'm not in the target audience. I would, recommend it to a parent seeking to entice their child into reading more or to a child who was looking for something easy and fun to read.
    • 3/5
      Stephanie is your typical teenager. Full of angst, especially after her father passes away unexpectedly in a car accident and her mother begins dating Gregg, who Stephanie can't stand and feels is substandard compared to her father. Stephanie and her mother have arguments that seem to further aggravate the tension at home. In a small, rural community, the town is rocked with the disappearance of two young girls. One which was found "not alive". Of course, our protagonist doesn't think it could happen to her! From very early on, Stephanie was kidnapped and her survival skills kick in thanks to her grandfather teaching her all there is to know about surviving in the wilderness. The biggest chunk of the book is about her breaking free, surviving in the wilderness, and thinking about all the things that have happened. Her father's death. Her mother moving on. Maybe Gregg isn't as bad as she thought. Regret. Sadness. Worry. Overcoming panic. I thought this book was well written for the targeted audience. It was simple, yet, gripping. This wasn't very action packed but more focused on her psyche and survival instincts.
    • 3/5
      The thought behind this book was intriguing and it started out very promising. But about 1/3 of the way through it started to become repetitive and the ending was apparent from a mile a way. There seemed to be more than a few teen cliches (Mom and daughter fight, Mom has boyfriend daughter doesn't like, city girl in the country, etc.) and this was especially disappointing because there were some distinctive traits that Stephanie had that could have been flushed out.Keeping in mind that this story is geared for 12+ readers, I still feel it was too simplistic and went way too fast...before you had a chance to appreciate where Stephanie was at she was off onto the next situation/cliche. Having seen the good reviews for McClintock's previous books, I was a bit underwhelmed by this outing.
    • 4/5
      This book is a very quick read (I breezed through it in about 40 minutes). It gets quickly to the action (the kidnapping of the main character) but is not overly scary. We learn about the character's history and relationships (with her mother, father, and grandfather) as she struggles to survive in the wilderness.There are a few twists and turns as the book goes along, and I was pleased to see a female character who does not sit idly by, but instead uses her intelligence to look out for herself. The topic is also relevant to tweens and teens today (unfortunately), as it seems there is always another case of a teenager missing.
    • 5/5
      I was so thrilled to get my ARC of Norah McClintock’s book Taken. From the minute I he plot was well thought out and well written. The following is my review.Stephanie and her mother have not gotten along since her father passed away and her mother started dating Gregg. Her father was a well educated and refined man in her eyes. Gregg, her mother’s new boyfriend is slovenly and a loser. It is obvious that he does things to make Stephanie irritated, except when her mother is around. He even remarks to her that she looks just like the girls that have gone missing recently. It seemed ironic that Stephanie would become the victim of a kidnapping. Thanks to her grandfather she has some survival skills that may just help her out.To say anymore would definitely spoil the book. The answer to the questions I asked from the beginning, “who was the serial killer”, was not answered the way I expected. As a mother I went through the emotions any mother would when their child is missing. Having lost someone to a kidnapping and murder brought back emotions I had not felt in a long time. I wondered if I would have been able to survive this situation. This was an awesome book and a very quick read. I will definitely be looking for more books by this author. Up until today I was unfamiliar with this author, but I will own more of her books and they will be placed on the shelves of my classroom
    • 3/5
      This book starts about fifteen minutes before the protagonist (Stephanie) is kidnapped, and rushes right on through the rest of the story at breakneck speed. It pauses only long enough for exposition-heavy internal monologue, as well as pages of Stephanie freaking out, then telling herself to stop freaking out. There's very little character development, and I found it to be quite predictable. (Stephanie doesn't like mom's new boyfriend, but then realises that maybe he's not that bad, when she's alone and scared in the woods. Maybe she should give him another chance!) I had a hunch pretty early on about the twist at the end, and was right.I was reminded of Twilight due to the setting and several character names. This book would have benefited from Ms. Meyer's long-windedness; I would have enjoyed it much more (and have had a lot more sympathy for the main character) if there had been more build up and follow up. A week alone in the woods fighting for survival doesn't give me that much to care about, and there wasn't much else to this book. Tell me when the full-length version comes out.

    Book preview

    Taken - Norah McClintock

    TAKEN

    TAKEN

    NORAH MCCLINTOCK

    Text copyright © 2009 Norah McClintock

    All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

    Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

    McClintock, Norah

    Taken / Norah McClintock.

    ISBN 978-1-55469-152-4

    I. Title.

    PS8575.C62T35 2009     jC813'.54     C2009-902065-3

    First published in the United States, 2009

    Library of Congress Control Number: 2009925695

    Summary: When Stephanie is abducted and left alone in the woods, it takes all of her strength to survive.

    Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

    Design by Teresa Bubela

    Cover photo by Larry Lilac, GetStock.com

    ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

    PO BOX 5626, STN. B

    VICTORIA, BC CANADA

    V8R 6S4

    ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

    PO BOX 468

    CUSTER, WA USA

    98240-0468

    www.orcabook.com

    Printed and bound in Canada.

    Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.

    12 11 10 09 • 4 3 2 1

    To Andrew Wooldridge: I think he knows why.

    CONTENTS

    ONE

    TWO

    THREE

    FOUR

    FIVE

    SIX

    SEVEN

    EIGHT

    NINE

    TEN

    ELEVEN

    TWELVE

    THIRTEEN

    FOURTEEN

    FIFTEEN

    SIXTEEN

    SEVENTEEN

    ONE

    My stomach clenched as the bus rumbled across the county line. In less than ten minutes it would pull into the parking lot at Ralph’s, and I would have to get off. I wished it would never get there. Allison wished exactly the opposite.

    I can’t wait to get home, she said. I can’t wait to show my mom what I bought.

    Allison was my best friend. We’d met in fourth grade after my dad had been hired as a manager at a nuclear power plant and we had moved from the city, where I had been born, to a small town about twenty miles from the plant. Allison had lived in the town her whole life. Her dad was a pharmacist. He owned a drugstore on the main street. Her mom was a hairdresser. She had her own salon. Allison and I hit it off right away. She made me forget how much I missed my friends back home. It wasn’t long before we were doing everything together. Today we had taken the bus into the city and spent the whole day shopping.

    Steph? Allison touched my arm. Steph, what’s the matter? I thought we had a great time, but you haven’t said a word for the past half hour.

    Reluctantly I pulled my eyes away from the bus window.

    Is it Gregg? Allison said.

    I nodded. He’s such a dick.

    Maybe they’ll break up.

    I wish.

    Boy, did I wish! I didn’t even know what my mom saw in him. He was nothing at all like my dad. My dad had a couple of university degrees and traveled all over the world before he met my mom and got married. He read all the time. He was smarter than almost anyone else I’d ever met, but he never showed off. He also cared about important things—things besides making money. He liked to spend his time helping people and volunteering in the community. He was involved in a couple of service clubs and some local charities. Everyone liked him. Everyone said what a nice guy he was.

    Gregg, on the other hand, had barely made it through high school. He worked at a car-parts factory that had gone down to half-shifts months ago. He was trying to make up for his reduced wages by working for a buddy of his who had a vending-machine operation. A couple of days every two weeks, Gregg drove all over the area, filling machines and collecting money. His idea of a good time was playing poker or going snowmobiling with a bunch of his loser friends he’d known since high school. His big dream was being his own boss in his own business (I never was clear on just what kind of business he had in mind or was even qualified to run) and making a pile of money that he could spend on a new boat, a new car every year and—this was the one he made the biggest deal about—an outdoor hot tub so that he and my mom could sit outside under the stars, drinking champagne and fooling around. Yuck!

    Unlike my dad, Gregg had never been anywhere. Worse, he was actually proud that he’d been born and raised, and had spent his whole life so far, in the same stifling little town. I’d lost count of the number of times I’d heard him say that he would never live within a hundred miles of a city. He said cities were filled with concrete and smog and people living on top of each other, like ants in an anthill. He said if you looked at the crime rates, you’d see that most of the people who got murdered were city people. What an idiot. First of all, didn’t he know that something like eighty percent of the people in the whole country lived in cities, so of course it stood to reason that most of the people who got murdered got murdered in cities? And second, it wasn’t like there was no crime at all out in the country. For the past two months, everyone in every small town up here had been freaking out because of the two girls who had disappeared. One day they were there, the next they were gone.

    When the first girl vanished, the police said they believed she had either run away or got lost. They thought this because she was a city girl who had moved out to the country less than a year ago and her parents said that she hadn’t settled in yet. Her mom was afraid she might have tried to hitchhike back to the city. Her father had another idea. He said she’d started taking walks in the woods behind the subdivision where they lived. The woods were thicker than they looked from the subdivision, and they went on for a long way. He thought she was in there, either hiding because she was mad at her parents or lost because she had no sense of direction. The police mounted an all-out search for her. Dozens of volunteers helped them, combing the woods, the fields around the woods and the countryside beyond that. They looked for six days before they called it off. They said they had exhausted all the possibilities.

    Two weeks after they stopped looking, a man out walking with his dog found her—not alive, as my mom put it. It turned out she had been murdered and then buried out in the scrub behind an abandoned sugar shack. Whoever had buried her hadn’t dug a deep grave. Because of that, an animal got at her, which is how the man and his dog found her. The dog started barking, and when the man went over to see what was wrong, he saw a hand lying on the ground. That’s it, just a hand. The man called the police and they brought in their own dog, and that dog led the cops to the rest of her. It was on the news for days. Everybody talked about it—especially because two days before that, the second girl had disappeared.

    At first the police said that there was no evidence to suggest that the second girl’s disappearance had anything to do with what had happened to the first girl. At least, that’s what they said publicly. Nobody believed that was what they really thought.

    Two girls, both the same age, both with long dark hair—of course they’re related, Derek Fowler, who was in three of my classes, said. And look at the circumstances—they were both supposedly on their way home, both just after dark, but neither one ever got there. Trust me, there’s a serial killer out there. Derek claimed to know everything there was to know about serial killers. He considered himself an expert. If the first girl turned up dead, you can bet your life the same thing will happen to the second girl. Serial killers are all about patterns and rituals. If they ever get caught, that’s how the police get them—by studying their patterns and rituals. The FBI has a whole training program on serial killers. Derek talked a lot about joining the FBI one day and learning to track serial killers. Most of the time, he sounded like he might turn out to be a serial killer himself. But not this time. Almost everyone in town was thinking the same thing Derek was.

    Derek claimed that the police were thinking it too, even if they never came right out and said so. Either that or they’re totally incompetent, Derek said. There were just too many coincidences for the two disappearances to be completely unrelated.

    The thought that there was a serial killer out there put people on edge. Parents warned their daughters never to go anywhere alone. They told them never to talk to strangers. They wagged their fingers and said they should never get into anyone’s car, not even someone they might

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1