I held the book in my hands. The front cover was an intriguing picture from inside a cave. Little did I know at the time why the author had chosen this image as the cover, or what the cave represented.
Runaway is Brian K. Perry's debut novel; a mixture between the genres of supernatural thriller, spiritual warfare and young adult. It's about a boy named Jay Williams, who was wrongfully arrested at a young age and sent to numerous group homes until he could be released at age 18. His latest group home was called the Carter County Home for Boys, but after just a couple days after unbearable treatment, Jay decided to runaway.
Evidence was found about the approximate time that Jay disappeared that pointed a serial killer being in the area. The FBI quickly suspected that Jay may have been kidnapped by this serial killer, and would soon turn up dead if they didn't act fast.
At the same time, an old, blind woman named Denise Kindred started having dreams where she can see, apparently sent to her by angels of God. These dreams told her all about the investigation and more, and before long she contacted the FBI to tell what she had seen.
Runaway is quite an original book. It's full of plenty of action and suspense. The characters are easy to bond with, and you often feel sad when things happen to them. The novel kept me up at night, and not only from me reading late. Some parts were certainly creepy.
It started out not being that well written. It was very interesting and I liked it, but frankly, I was disappointed with the writing quality. Thankfully, though, as the story progressed, the writing got a lot better, and by the end I absolutely loved the book. It was even left open for a sequel.
Runaway is full of great ideas and secrets, and even included some hidden Easter eggs for the readers to find. I generally have a grudge against "preachy" novels, as then less people want to read them, but some preachy books are just really good, and I would consider this to be one of them.
It could really use a proofread, and a partial rewrite is in development, but once the new version is out, I would recommend it to anyone who considers themselves a follower of Christ.
On a side note, I met the author, Brian K. Perry, at an event (the event of my life) in Nashville, TN about a week ago, and that is how this book came to be in my possession.
Reuben Horst
And what event would that be? ;)
ReplyDeleteThanks for this, I definitely want to check it out.