Raven’s Peak is a unique horror telling by Lincoln Cole. This is the first book in the World on Fire series and the set up for much more adventure in coming books. The reader’s first encounter in the book is with a former reverend, Arthur, who is in jail and left to question his faith and suffer with the guilt from his previous endeavors and his inability to continue fighting to keep the world safe from evil. After a meeting with a former colleague, Arthur is thrust into another, possibly his last, fight against evil in order to save his own family.

The reader is then brought to Haatim who is also question his faith due to the death of his 17-year-old sister. As a Theology major, faith played a major role in his life. While struggling with his current life and back in Phoenix after spending time with his family, Haatim is approached by a strange man asking for help. The man is convinced that someone is following him and will kill him, so he hires Haatim to be his personal investigator. This is where Haatim is thrust into trouble and is introduced to the stalker he was stalking, Abigail.

Abigail, a demon hunter, takes Haatim on what can only be explained as the most horrifying adventure Haatim has ever been a part of. They are led to the small town of Raven’s Peak where Abigail is hoping to find the answers as to where her “father” has been taken. When they reach the town, Abigail is faced with the most powerful demon she has encountered and is forced to fight this demon to save not only herself, but the entire town.

I was hooked from the beginning and wanted to continue reading. Once I got into the bulk of the story, I had a really hard time continuing. This took me much longer to read than normal especially for a book of this size. Cole explored too much of the tiny details that did not directly relate to the story and made it hard to keep reading.

The story flows well, although in spots seemed to drag and could have been summed up much quicker, leaving room for more important details to be explored. I will say that I enjoyed the general writing style Lincoln Cole uses. It matched well with the horror genre and with the story he was attempting to tell. On the other hand there were a few errors in this story. Nothing that would necessarily take away from the story, but errors that were definitely noticeable.

Character development was decent and introduced each of the important characters to the reader. I personally was not a fan of Haatim’s character. For an adult who has lived in the real world for quite some time, it is not apparent. He is very immature and has obviously not experienced much in the world he has supposedly been living in. To not know which way to point a gun seemed really unlikely in today’s world.

Overall, I give this title 3 out of 5 stars. I did not think the story was bad. In fact, I thought it was a decent story. Would I recommend it to someone? Probably not. This is definitely a book that each person will have to form their own opinion. If someone were to ask me if they should read it, I would leave it up to them, but of course I would also not give them any pre-existing notions that I have. It would be interesting to see what the next book in the series has in store for the reader.

Hookibility: 2 stars

Writing Style: 4 stars

Story: 3 stars

Overall: 3 stars

I would love to hear some more opinions on this title. Get your own copy of Raven’s Peak through the link below: