The Children of Red Peak
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3.5 • 28 Ratings
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- $4.99
Publisher Description
The most intense novel yet from an unmissable voice in horror fiction, Bram Stoker award-nominated author Craig DiLouie. "Horror readers will be hooked." (Publishers Weekly)
"A heart-wrenching, thought-provoking, terrifying tale about the meaning of life . . . A great choice for fans of Stephen Graham Jones' The Only Good Indians (2020), Paul Tremblay's Disappearance at Devil's Rock (2016), or Alma Katsu's The Hunger (2018)." - Booklist
They escaped the cult, but are they free?
David Young, Deacon Price, and Beth Harris live with a dark secret. They grew up in an isolated religious community in the shadow of the mountain Red Peak, and they are among the few who survived its horrific last days.
Years later, the trauma of what they experienced never feels far behind. And when a fellow survivor commits suicide, they reunite to confront their past and share their memories of that final night.
But discovering the terrifying truth might put them on a path back to Red Peak, and escaping a second time could be almost impossible....
"A subtle character story and a chilling tale of horror. It goes deep into the heart of people caught up in terrifying events." - Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author.
For more from Craig DiLouie, check out:
Our War
One of Us
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With this chilling story of cult abuse, DiLouie (Our War) proves his mastery of the slow slide from psychological drama into supernatural horror. As the 15th anniversary of the mass suicide of the Family of the Living Spirit approaches, one of the five survivors of the cult commits suicide and the other four reunite at her funeral. David Young, now a cult exit counselor, uses his happy home life to avoid thinking about the past; his sister, Andrea, a police officer, stews in her anger; rocker Deacon Price pours his pain into his music; and Beth Harris, a psychologist with intense PTSD, convinces them all that revisiting the cult's base in Red Peak, Calif., will give them some closure. The compassion DiLouie builds for each of these four, both in the present as they plan their return to Red Peak and in flashbacks to their childhoods in the cult, makes the tale's eventual dark turn hit especially hard. DiLouie also extends a surprising amount of goodwill to Jeremiah Peale, the intense, folksy preacher who founded the cult, showing the way the desperate community of Family of the Living Spirit became easy prey for a supernatural evil. An impressive twist, meanwhile, feels both shocking and inevitable. Horror readers will be hooked.
Customer Reviews
Abrupt Ending
The build of the book was decent, however the ending was very abrupt and meh. First book I have read by this author.
One Of The Worst Endings I’ve Ever Read
The first two thirds of the book are pretty good, but the finale is both baffling and morally repugnant. It completely goes against everything that came before it, and is just a shockingly irresponsible thing to write.