Genre: Horror
Publisher: Redhook
Pages: 384
Release Date: November 17, 2020
Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Craig DiLouie brings a new twist to the cult horror story in a heart-pounding novel of psychological suspense.
David Young, Deacon Price, and Beth Harris live with a dark secret. As children, they survived a religious group’s horrific last days at the isolated mountain Red Peak. Years later, the trauma of what they experienced never feels far behind.
When a fellow survivor commits suicide, they finally reunite and share their stories. Long-repressed memories surface, defying understanding and belief. Why did their families go down such a dark road? What really happened on that final night?
The answers lie buried at Red Peak. But truth has a price, and escaping a second time may demand the ultimate sacrifice.
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The Children of Red Peak is a horror novel about the survivors of a doomsday cult. When one of the survivors dies by suicide, the remaining survivors set out of discover what truly happen the last night everyone was still alive.
The Children of Red Peak is told from three of the survivors’ perspectives, David, Beth, and Deacon, and jumps from the present to the past. I enjoyed David and Beth’s perspectives as they both offered two different viewpoints on the trauma. Though they all suffer from psychological damage, David seems to have suffered the least. He was focused on his family and career as an exit counsellor. Beth is a psychologist so her perspective offered a more clinical look at the characters and what happened to them. Finally, Deacon is a rock star. His chapters were unbearable. DiLouie often got lost in the nuances of music and music making that I found myself skimming through multiple pages in hopes of getting back to the story.
I ended up rating the novel 3.5 stars for two reasons. First, the horror elements do not come into play until later in the novel. DiLouie takes his time situating the characters and setting making the novel feel long at times and not all that spooky. Secondly, the ending didn’t work for me. This is a purely subjective observation. It didn’t work for me, but it may work for me.
Though most of my review is negative, I did enjoy my time reading The Children of Red Peak. It’s an interesting story with enjoyable character dynamics. I especially enjoyed Beth’s more clinical perspective contrasted with David’s more human perspective.
Overall, The Children of Red Peak is an interesting enough horror novel centered around a mysterious doomsday cult. The horror scenes are brutal and not for the faint of heart.
*** I received an ARC via Netgalley for an honest review.
Will you be reading The Children of Red Peak?
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I’m with you on that ending, it was very odd. But overall I enjoyed this more than you, I thought the non horror parts were interesting and the horror at the end worked fine for me.
This was such a hard review to write. I really liked it, but didn’t at the same time. I think the ending really threw me off. I’m glad I’m not the only one.