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Anyone ever read anything by Frank Peretti?  He writes Christian horror novels of sorts, and they're quite good.  Even if you're not into Christianity, they're still well written and suspenseful books.  Two of them have been made into movies, but I tend to graviate to the books more.  For those unfamiliar with his works, here's a list of his published titles.  (Excluding his children's books and non-fiction.)


This Present Darkness
Piercing the Darkness
Tilly
Prophet
The Oath
The Visitation
Hangman's Curse
Nightmare Academy
House, co-authored with Ted Dekker

I've read lots of his books, and they're great. I don't think I would call them 'horror', though they are generally about angels and demons interacting with the mortal world, prophets discovery their power in modern times, and that sort of thing.

I think of 'horror books' more as being blood thirsty and gory, and I don't think his books are particularly either of those.

They're more, spiritual, putting christian and biblical ideas into modern day settings. Like, characters going about their business, not aware that invisible guardian angels are beside them, protecting them against the bad guys, who have invisible demons beside them, trying to get at the good guys. If you get what I mean. Or people praying, and the angels become empowered by the prayers, and defeat the demons, and that sort of thing. I quite liked the books I read.

I've only read these one's though:

This Present Darkness
Piercing the Darkness
Prophet
The Oath

I also have his children's books as well. I remember I liked them too, though I haven't read them in years. This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness were related to each other, while the other books were standalone books.

I found his books in Christian book stores.

http://www.amazon.com/This-Present-Darkness-Frank-Peretti/dp/1581345283/ref=pd_bbs_sr_2/002-9557619-8705605?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1183359136&sr=8-2

This is his first book on Amazon.Com

If you go down to INSIDE THIS BOOK, and click "read the first page" it brings up a book viewer. If you click on "surprise me" button in the book viewer, it brings up a random page from the book - they have every page in the book viewer, but it doesn't let you read them in order, just a random viewed page so you can see what the book is like. Lots of books on Amazon.Com have this neat feature, letting you browse the inside of a book before you plan to go and buy it. Of course, it's no guarantee you'll read an interesting page in any book, but it's a neat feature. Also means there's a small chance if you read too many random pages, you might spoil the plot :)

Yeah, I read This Present Darkness and its sequel, Piercing the Darkness, a long time ago.  Also read maybe 4 of his children's books.  The adult stuff was better.  Some of the scenes in the kids books were clearly taken from other media, like Indiana Jones.

Also, the characterization was better in the adult books.  The demons and angels were the most interesting characters- I could have happily read an entire book that was mainly about them, instead of needing the terrestrial plotline.

"The adult stuff was better"

Isnit it always?