No One Leaves The Family | AstraDaemon

David Young, Deacon Price, and Beth Harris live with a dark secret. As children, they survived a religious group's horrific last days at the isolated mountain Red Peak. Years later, the trauma of what they experienced never feels far behind.

When a fellow survivor commits suicide, they finally reunite and share their stories. Long-repressed memories surface, defying understanding and belief. Why did their families go down such a dark road? What really happened on that final night?

The answers lie buried at Red Peak. But truth has a price, and escaping a second time may demand the ultimate sacrifice.

THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK by Craig DiLouie is somewhat similar to CHILDREN OF GOD (co-written with Jonathan Moon), giving the impression the author is carving out a comfortable place for himself in the cult sub-genre. For years, he's given readers brutal apocalypse and post-apocalypse stories, and now he appears to be offering an explanation of how the unraveling of the world can begin with just a small group of people.

The POV switches between the child survivors, now adults, with multiple flashbacks scattered throughout the novel. The lives they have created for themselves are not strong enough to keep the door closed against their memories, and their various coping mechanisms are no longer working. The four soon realize they are still technically part of the Family, and the Spirit of Red Peak is waiting for them to return.

While the religious fanaticism is horrific, with descriptions of abuse, mutilations, and the like, particularly the moments involving the children, what the four friends find at the top of the summit is the most terrifying. I'm not even sure I trust the ending not to be another manipulation of the mind.

While I recommend this one for the well-crafted suspense, I don't know if this will be fall into everyone's definition of horror.

As always,

AstraDaemon