Heaven's Peak: A Gripping Horror Novel

I don't read books but, my sister does. I saw it and it looked and got my attention. She loves watching those murder shows. Well too much lol. The cover feels soft. My son touched it to read what the book is about. When he put it down I saw his hand print on the cover. So I wiped his hand print off it. It's probably our hands are oily or sweaty lol. At least it I could clean it easier not sure what other stains go on it. I bought it for my sisters Christmas present.

A nice read. The story it tells is super cool reminds me of stranger things in a way.

I read through the whole thing and I was really disappointed, since this story had potential. Since reading long reviews is tedious, I’ll shorten my critiques.

-Poor sentence structure and repetitive descriptions/phrases. Every time the masked man comes around the author has to mention that it looks like the mask is connected to his face, and point out his black attire. Every. Single. Time. It got annoying and repetitive really quickly. And wording was confusing at times too.

-Quite a few typos and pronoun errors that could’ve been avoided had the author hired some proofreaders or just proofread his work. It takes away credibility for me when I find typos.

-At times it felt was if this book was straight up ripping off the video game “Heavy Rain”. A main character in there is named Norman Jayden (Norman James, in here), and there are several scenes that mimic scenes in that game, especially police department scenes. I also felt a lot of things were taken from “Stranger Things” as well.

-Absolutely no character development or personality with any of the characters. Everyone talks the same and has no depth. I couldn’t have cared less about the main characters. No individuality.

-The fact that everyone is Christian seems to possibly be a push of views on the reader. Also, no strong female characters? They’re all helpless.

-If you’re gonna create a fictional town, such as Stephen King’s Derry or Salem’s Lot, make the towns iconic and like-able. King makes his towns real in the reader’s mind. The culture, the characters, the geography. I didn’t feel or see any of that with Heaven’s Peak. The town was just, well, the town. The town needs to be developed and it’s story needs to be explained more. Which brings me to my next point.

-Why in the H E double hockey sticks is the ending the way it is? There’s absolutely no context or explanation for anything that happened. No idea what the black goo is, no idea what and where the masked people are from or how they turn into them. Nothing. And the mines? Yeah, we never figure out who or what is running them. Just because you have some cool ideas doesn’t mean you just leave it at that. Expand on them and actually give some context to them. Again, not a well thought out story. Terribly unfinished.

-We didn’t get to know nor care for Jenny much (same could be said for James) so why should I care that he’s gonna take care of her? Not to mention it’s just a bad way to end the story.

-Zero chemistry romance. Seriously, Kevin and Sophia(?) had absolutely no chemistry and no character to help it. Could’ve been left out.

-The author chooses to tell rather than show, which leads to quick chapters due to lack of figurative language (when there is some, it’s weird) and detail and character building. The author will say “so and so walked out to their car” instead of showing the journey to said car and the people they encounter and whatnot, if that makes sense.

-No explanation for why the town went mad.

-I feel like James would’ve been sent to the small town to help with one missing persons case, not to just figure out what’s going on. Don’t they always have a goal, the FBI?

-Children and teens don’t talk THAT proper.

Overall, this story needs a lot of work. I think with enough time, proofreaders and development, this could be a really good story. Unfortunately, it’s really not as of now.

4/10

I read through this book in 3 days. It was a nice short read, story was good. Creepy at times, graphic at other times. What you would want from a horror/thriller novel. I liked it. However, I wonder if anyone proof read this book before it went to print. There were quite a few spelling and grammatical errors that made things confusing. Here is one example:

"He closed his eyes and brought his hand to her mouth as he tried to swallow back the vomit that had already risen to his throat." - Page 216

The mixing up of pronouns within sentences, in particular, happened a few times throughout the book. This is the first book I've read in my life where I have seen that happen.... and more than once. Aside from that, if you are a book worm that can handle those type of errors without getting too distracted, I recommend this book.