3 out of 4 stars
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Raven's Peak by Lincoln Cole is the first book in the “World on Fire” series. It is an urban fantasy novel aimed at teen and young adult readers. It begins the saga of Haatim and Abigail's fight against evil supernatural forces.
Haatim is a recent Theology graduate from India. After the death of his sister, he has a crisis of faith. He returns to the United States, where he studied, in order to distance himself from his religious parents while he tries to process his grief. Abigail is a mysterious demon hunter, who works for “the Council”, an international and interdenominational group of religious leaders, whose mission is to fight evil in the world. Abigail is also on a personal mission to find out what happened to her mentor, Arthur, (the Reverend) who is introduced to the reader in the Prologue. Abigail's personal quest sometimes brings her into direct conflict with the stipulations of the Council she serves.
Haatim's path becomes irrevocably intertwined with Abigail's when he is offered a job as an informal Private Eye. In a seemingly chance encounter with a stranger in a public library, Haatim is offered and accepts the task of following and obtaining pictures of Abigail for the strange man. At first, the work seems easier and more enjoyable than Haatim expects. But he soon realizes that he has taken on a lot more than he bargained for. It very quickly becomes apparent to him that supernatural forces are at work, and that in ways he does not understand, he is involved in a terrfiying situation which defies all rational explanation. He teams up with Abigail, the woman he was intially supposed to be following. Together they embark on a terrifying journey to Raven´s Peak, a small town where nothing is as it seems, and where the story reaches its dramatic conclusion.
Raven's Peak is engaging and entertaining. I found the book's main characters, Haatim and Abigail, extemely likeable. The author does a great job of recruiting the reader's sympathy to their cause. Although it is often a feature of urban fantasy, and may attract some readers, I disliked the book's gruesomeness.
Raven's Peak is a light read, but it touches on some deeper topics, including faith, good and evil, and potentially ambiguious consequences of choosing to follow or break rules, or to respect or defy authority. I felt that some of these themes could have been explored more through the story without losing the intended audience of teens and young adults.
The story is well structured and the plot well developed. It starts to hit a real rhythm two or three chapters in, once all the main characters are fully introduced and the different threads of the story fully set up. The beginning was a bit awkward and disjointed, both in terms of content and language use. Once over the initial slightly bumpy start, the author effectively hooks the reader by creating suspense and intrigue. I wanted to keep reading to find out what was going to happen next. The book ends on a cliffhanger which will likely be effective in convincing readers to continue with the series.
I did not have the impression that the book had been professionally proofread or edited. I found a number of instances of missing or incorrect punctuation, as well as couple of inconsistencies in the content, and some awkward language structuring. All of this could be improved with further proofreading and editing.
I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. It has engaging characters and the plot is well structured, so a 2 would be harsh. I would not give it a 4 because it is sometimes stylistically awkward, and especially early on, jumps abruptly between events without fully developing them. I would particularly recommend it to teenage fans of urban fantasy. I would not recommend it to readers who are uncomfortable with graphic violence.
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Raven's Peak
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