Reviewed by Rachel: 8.5 out of 10.

For those of you who have read The Hunted by Mike Delosso, this book is very similar to it. I say that and not the other way around because I read The Oath second. However, I liked and disliked things about both books and I would happily read both again and don’t fancy one over the other.

This must be one of the very few novels I have ever read that actually scared me. Even though I read it during the day, I was still spooked by the smallest of sounds and had to keep looking around the house to make sure I was alone! I don’t think it was the ‘fantasy’ part of the novel so much as simply realising what atrocities that evil can commit through human beings when allowed. When the mind dwells on that instead of the saving power of Jesus, one cannot help but feel helpless and lost. However, Peretti certainly allows his readers to believe that things will certainly turn out better than they seem.

Superbly written and delicately crafted as have been the tradition of all the Peretti books that I have read so far.  He draws his readers in piece by twist-turning piece to gradually end up with the finished puzzle being not quite what you expected. A fantastic writer and certainly right up there with the best authors I have come across.

As you journey with the main character of the story, you find yourself feeling sorry for him when he gets hurt, cheering him on when he does the right thing and really drawn in to the story as if you were part of it. The way Peretti makes the characters come alive is quite spectacular and realistic.

All in all, a great read (certainly not at night though) and I would highly recommend it. If you like a bit of fantasy, drama, action, and spiritual themes all combined into one, then this book is for you!

Click here to visit www.frankperetti.com

Reviewed by Stephen: 9 out of 10.

Welcome to my house. These are the house rules:
1. God came to my house and I killed him.
2. I will anyone who comes to my house like I killed God.
3. Give me a dead body and I might let Rule #2 slide.
You have until dawn.

If you’ve read a few ‘Christian’ books in your time, then when you see the dual authorship of House by Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, you’ll be sure to nerd out. These two are the pioneers of good wholesome supernatural thrillers.

I went into House with around, let’s see, three different view points from three different parties. One, it was ‘psycho’. Dekker is psycho, Peretti is psycho, join them together and you get House: Psycho, psycho, psycho. The second view point was that it was simply great. The third viewpoint was that it was ridiculously scary and you should never read it at night. Well then!

Personally I thought that House was an absolute genius of a book, and despite people saying they couldn’t tell which author was writing which parts, I could wage a few good guesses as to who wrote what. The co-authorship worked really well, and I appreciated the Peretti influences and new flare he added to Dekker’s somewhat familiar style.

House brings to the surface many relevant issues, for example, how terribly dangerous it is to get involved with anything to do with the demonic realm. The book (but moreso the movie) has been put under heavy criticism for being too dark, and it is quite simply a very dark book. But in order to come to grips with just how desperately we need the remedy of salvation, we must first see how desperately lost we are without it. You cannot appreciate the water without first walking through the desert, almost dying of thirst.

In my opinion, the only downfall that kept me from giving this book a five star rating was there were a few things scattered here and there that felt a little bit ‘borrowed’ from Peretti’s and Dekker’s other works. I did however like the ending very much. There was a terrific twist in there that took me mostly by surprise.

One of my favourite quotes from the book would have to be this one:

“Most people are quite dense. They like little white houses with big stained-glassed windows and prefer to do their killing with looks and words behind one another’s backs. Welcome to my house. No secrets allowed. Here we all do our killing with guns and axes and knives. It’s more bloody than what most people are accustomed to, yes, but it’s far less brutal.”

Click here to visit teddekker.com
Click here to visit frankperetti.com