TopShelf Magazine recently interviewed me about my upcoming psychological/cosmic horror release, THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK.
It was a great interview where we talked about the novel, cults, and the writing process.
I hope you’ll check it out here!
“An emotionally devastating, ultimately hopeful horror story about trauma, the power of love, and the unexplainable forces that surround us,” writes Booklist, the publication of the American Library Association, in its review of The Children of Red Peak, coming from Redhook (Hachette) in November 2020.
Stoker-nominated DiLouie (One of Us, 2018) returns with a heart-wrenching, thought-provoking, terrifying tale about the meaning of life. In 2005, members of a religious cult committed suicide on top of Red Peak. Five children survived, but when the authorities rescued them, there were no bodies anywhere. Now, as the 15th anniversary approaches, one survivor commits suicide, forcing the others—and their psychological wounds—back together. Told from the alternating perspectives of three survivors, both in the present and in flashbacks to their time with “The Family,” the book illustrates the same events from different angles without sacrificing a compelling pace that builds relentlessly until each narrator is forced to confront their trauma in a beautiful and terrifying climax. Utilizing true crime tropes and the supernatural intrigue that surrounds the mountain itself, DiLouie creates more than a typical cult thriller. This is an emotionally devastating, ultimately hopeful horror story about trauma, the power of love, and the unexplainable forces that surround us. A great choice for fans of Stephen Graham Jones’ The Only Good Indians (2020), Paul Tremblay’s Disappearance at Devil’s Rock (2016), or Alma Katsu’s The Hunger (2018).
COMING NOVEMBER 2020
“With this chilling story of cult abuse, DiLouie (Our War) proves his mastery of the slow slide from psychological drama into supernatural horror… An impressive twist…feels both shocking and inevitable. Horror readers will be hooked.” —Publisher’s Weekly
“I finished The Children of Red Peak several days ago and I’m still thinking about it—especially those terrific final 50 pages. Gripping, thought-provoking, and suspenseful, Craig DiLouie’s latest is a master study of darkness and light and the meaning of life.” —Richard Chizmar, New York Times bestselling author
“Absolutely riveting… A tapestry of past and present come together in this chilling tale of family, faith, and redemption. Craig DiLouie has a new fan.” —J.D. Barker, international bestselling author of She Has A Broken Thing Where Her Heart Should Be
“The Children of Red Peak is ice-in-your-heart, nerve-racking fantastic—Heaven’s Gate by way of Stephen King’s IT. Almost every page made my skin crawl.” —Peter Clines, New York Times bestselling author of Paradox Bound and Terminus
“The Children of Red Peak is both a subtle character study and a chilling tale of horror. It goes deep into the heart of people caught up in terrifying events. Highly recommended.” —Jonathan Maberry, New York Times bestselling author of Ink and V-Wars
“DiLouie really knows how to simultaneously shatter nerves and break hearts. The Children of Red Peak is a genuinely unsettling psychological horror novel, a story where faith and fear combine to destroy innocence and devastate lives. Intense, compulsive, thought-provoking, and highly recommended.” —David Moody, author of the Hater and Autumn series
“One of the most powerful voices in dark fiction does it again! Craig DiLouie’s The Children of Red Peak delivers a suspenseful and unpredictable psychological exploration of family, belief, and horror as chilling as it is thought-provoking. One of the best books of the year!” —James Chambers, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of On the Night Border
Today, horror blog Night Worms published the cover reveal for my cult horror novel THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK, coming November 2020 from Hachette Book Group.
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.
Night Worms invited me to offer some comments about the cover. Here they are:
I worked with Lisa Marie Pompilio on the cover of Orbit’s OUR WAR, a novel about a modern civil war in America, and was absolutely blown away by the final product. When I heard I’d be working with her again on the upcoming release of THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK, I was very excited. She didn’t disappoint. The cover portrays wilderness, which is on the nose in terms of where a fair portion of the novel takes place but also figurative of mystery, the past, and a spiritual journey from pain to truth. The upside-down world, dead trees, and trailing sliver of blood screams corruption, danger, and tragedy. What is hiding there? What is the price of finding out?
THE CHILDREN OF RED PEAK is about the human search for meaning and the dark side of finding it. In the novel, a group of adults reunite to confront the childhood years they spent in a religious community that degenerated into a violent cult. Tragedy broke them apart and will bring them back together to ask the questions: What really happened that last horrible night in the wilderness at the base of Red Peak? What waits for them on its summit? To find out, they will have to journey across a different kind of wilderness of time and trauma and return to make the same ultimate choice that faced their parents long ago.
Stay tuned!
On August 20, 2019, Orbit will publish my political thriller, OUR WAR, about a journalist and UN worker who uncover the use of child soldiers during a second American civil war. Today, I’m very excited to announce Orbit will also publish my new psychological thriller with horror elements, tentatively titled THE SACRIFICE, in 2020.
In this novel, three people who survived their childhood in an apocalyptic cult reunite to confront their past and the entity that appeared the night the cult destroyed itself. THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE and IT meet the Jonestown massacre in this psychological thriller about memory, trauma, belonging, and faith.
Publishing about 60 titles each year, Orbit U.S. is the sci-fi/fantasy imprint at Hachette Book Group U.S.A., with authors including M.R. Carey, Joe Abercrombie and Iain M. Banks. Plans for THE SACRIFICE are still preliminary, but the intent right now is to publish it likely in the fall of 2020.
Very exciting for me, it still feels like a dream. I’m very fortunate to be able to work with a quality company like Orbit.