I'm new to the genre of 'spiritual thrillers', and I'm still not entirely sure what to think about them, but this one was a far cry better than the last one I came across. The characters are believable and engaging, and the first half of the book especially is wonderfully creepy. Further into the book, things begin to get more predictable and didactic (which has, admittedly, been my problem with spiritual/christian fiction and thrillers in the past), so the book lost some of its momentum for me. As characters figure things out in this genre, the reader invariably figures out which characters are going to be fine, and the basics of what's going to happen, along with why...this might be unavoidable, but it does slow down the story and make it fairly predictable. If the characters had had more depth, they themselves might have compelled me more fully, but if there is one downfall to the book outside of predictability, it's that the characters could be far more interesting and complex than they are. Right now, all of their complexities are tied up in things which directly relate to the story, and with everything so perfectly neat and logical...well, it takes away what reality the story could otherwise hold.

On the whole, I loved the creepiness of the first half of the book, and even when I knew exactly what would happen (maybe 75 pages from the ending on page 314), I was still entertained enough to want to continue reading. And, really, it was well written--I just would have preferred a bit more depth to characters, and a bit less predictability. When you tie a supernatural thriller's plot to faith, however, my fear is that the end will always end up being rather predictable, along with climaxes and explanations. They may be surprises to the characters themselves, but no smart reader will be surprised by end results. ( )

Terrific spiritual thriller. Taut. ( )

This is as close to horror as I'm likely to come to read. Candace misses her dead father terribly, so when his voice speaks to her from the shadows she is ready to do just about anything to still be able to communicate with him. But is the voice speaking to her really her father, and is this new secretive life she's leading really for the good? Candace has to find out the answers to these questions in a spiritual journey that takes her through the darkness and shows her how to find hope. But be forewarned--there is a lot of darkness for her to go through. This was an adventure with many elements of horror in it, I managed it OK but if you are easily creeped out it probably isn't for you. But if you like dark adventure/thriller stories than I would recommend this one for it's plot full of suspense, twist and turns, and nail-biting situations. ( )