Review by carnegliak -- Raven's Peak by Lincoln Cole

[carnegliak]

[Following is a volunteer review of "Raven's Peak" by Lincoln Cole.]

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4 out of 4 stars

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The book I chose to review was Raven’s Peak by Lincoln Cole. I found this book really enjoyable to read, and the characters are very realistic, even humorous at times. I believed they could be real people, and their motives for what they did seemed realistic as well.

One of the major characters is Haatim Arison, an unemployed college student who lives in an apartment funded by his wealthy family. When a stranger offers Haatim a job (and money), he eagerly accepts but then gets in way over his head.

It turns out the job is trailing Abigail, a Hunter who works for a secret society called The Council. The Council is a multinational organization whose main goal is to hunt demons.

Abigail and Haatim end up becoming friends, and go on a mission to rescue Abigail’s adoptive father Arthur from a demon who has dragged Arthur to Hell. While trying to find Arthur, they are called away to investigate strange occurrences in Raven’s Peak, and end up tailing a demon named Belphegor. Following the trail of victims taken by Belphegor leads them to an underground cave that may help them rescue Arthur.

I thought the characters in this book were really well-written. Abigail is very funny in a dark way, for example, and all of the many background characters feel quite real. Like real people, they have their ups and downs. Both of the main characters have touchy subjects that nobody should talk about with them; for Abigail it’s Arthur, and for Haatim it is his issues with his father (whom he feels neglected by).

I also thought it was really cool how Cole uses the Demons as both literal and metaphorical beings. Some demons in the novel possess humans directly, but others simply exploit the weaknesses and insecurities their targets already had in them.

Many times the demons did not have to possess humans to get them to do what they wanted. They told one character, for example, that none of his friends liked them and were just using him because he got them drugs. This caused him to go off the edge, so to speak, and the demons just had to plant the idea. I thought this was interesting because it pointed out the kind of moral ambiguity present in all humans.

One small thing I didn’t like was that it was pretty obvious when characters were possessed by demons. They would have dark red or other unnaturally colored eyes, or start acting insanely and laughing while they did dark, unspeakable things, for instance.

The pacing was really well-done in my opinion. Cole stays within each character’s stream of consciousness, revealing just enough to drive readers crazy and make them want to turn the next page or read the next chapter. I appreciated that the chapters were short and didn’t overwhelm readers with information. That being said, the writing style does not confuse the reader either, and flows very smoothly.

I found myself very attached to Haatim and Abigail by the end of the novel. Not only did I feel they could be real people, I found myself thinking as if they were real people even when I wasn’t reading the novel. As I went about my day, I thought about the fact that I wanted them to survive and was curious about the ending.

There’s an old saying in writing that goes “murder your darlings”, meaning that you create characters the reader is attached to and then either literally kill them or put them in lots of danger. This makes for great suspense, and Cole certainly has no trouble murdering his darlings.

Abigail and Haatim face a great deal of danger throughout the book, and by the end the odds are so massively stacked against them you’ll be biting your nails waiting to see what happens.

Cole is a masterful illustrator as well, only his paint strokes are words. He can make a scene feel eerie by making it terrifyingly dark and quiet, and through only simple description your blood pressure will skyrocket in the best possible way. He uses blood and gore, but not gratuitously and only where it makes sense.

Abigail was my favorite character because of her tongue-in-cheek attitude. She’s somewhat dark and has a lot of pain in her past, but she can still be very funny and she kicks butt too. She has a lot of fun one-liners that make you want to “hang out” with her more.

Overall, I give this book 4 out of 4 stars. Cole’s town of Raven’s Peak was really easy and enjoyable to “live in”, and his characters are folks I’d love to see return in the next few novels in the World on Fire series. This was a pleasure to read, and I think those who want to start writing could learn a great deal from using this novel as a road map.

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Raven's Peak
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Like carnegliak's review? Post a comment saying so!

[alwaysdaddygirl]

Kudos! Very intersting.

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[GCamer]

It's my first time to encounter the saying “murder your darlings”, but it makes perfect sense. I totally agree with you. Cole certainly murdered his darlings in this book and I hope I could also read how he would murder his darlings in the next books of the series.

I also wrote a review about this though it was full of spelling and grammatical mistakes. Please forgive those and I hope you could give a feedback on the content if you have time.

Thanks for the great review!