Book Review: The Heaven's Rise by Christopher Rice

[NCReaderGirl]

“It’s been a decade since the Delongpre family vanished near Bayou Rabineaux, and still no one can explain the events of that dark and sweltering night. No one except Niquette Delongpre, the survivor who ran away from the mangled stretch of guardrail on Highway 22 where the impossible occurred…and kept on running. Who left behind her best friends, Ben and Anthem, to save them from her newfound capacity for destruction…and who alone knows the source of her very bizarre—and very deadly—abilities: an isolated strip of swampland called Elysium.
An accomplished surgeon, Niquette’s father dreamed of transforming the dense acreage surrounded by murky waters into a palatial compound befitting the name his beloved wife gave to it, Elysium: “the final resting place for the heroic and virtuous.” Then, ten years ago, construction workers dug into a long-hidden well, one that snaked down into the deep, black waters of the Louisiana swamp and stirred something that had been there for centuries—a microscopic parasite that perverts the mind and corrupts the body.
Niquette is living proof that things done can’t be undone. Nothing will put her family back together again. And nothing can save her. But as Niquette, Ben, and Anthem uncover the truth of a devastating parasite that has the potential to alter the future of humankind, Niquette grasps the most chilling truths of all: someone else has been infected, too. And unlike her, this man is not content to live in the shadows. He is intent to use his newfound powers for one reason only: revenge”

A mutation by definition is a permanent change to DNA, the very basic items that make up each and every one of a human’s cell make-up. What then would happen if one were to be submerged in a pool of water swimming with some unknown parasite? For Niquette and Marshall that little few minute dip in a pool under construction changed their lives forever – now they can do something neither of them ever imagined. The Louisiana Bayou is a place of intriguing mystery and myth, many stories have come from those swamps and many an author’s imagination has been stirred by the possibility of things lurking in the waters, from Anne Rice’s Interview with a Vampire to Charlaine Harris’ Southern Vampire Series (aka Sookie Stackhouse & True Blood) and the ghost stories to rise from those murky waters as we saw in St. Charles at Dusk by Sarah Cradit – each one bringing something mysterious to the surface. This time, Christopher Rice has chosen to sink his characters right into the very bayou that has brought so much to the surface.
Initially this book did not pull me in – it was extremely choppy and did not flow properly for my liking, the character development was there, the relationships of each person very well interwoven to the next and the reader held a firm grasp of each character and how they may or may not behave. The reader saw the how the change affected each individual, how the disappearance of the Delongpre family affected the community, Anthem , Niquette’s on and off Boyfriend, and Ben, Niquette’s best friend, along with Marshall Ferriot’s family. The further I read into the story the more intriguing it got, the more the story moved forward and the question of Who? What? Where? When? and Why? Were finally answered it became almost obvious what was happening and how the main “villain” in the story was going to get his comeuppance. After I finished this novel I was left wondering if perhaps this book was a prequel and will the story play out in similar fashion to the X-Men series as it appears to be one of those backstory’s that Marvel has done a lot of lately.

[shayguthrie]

This book sounds interesting, was it enjoyed? I think I may have to go read this one!

[NCReaderGirl]

I did enjoy it, took a bit to get into it, but once I did I enjoyed it very much!