Review: The Children of Red Peak by Craig DiLouie

Author: Craig DiLouie
Publisher: Redhook
Publication Date: November 2020

Bram Stoker Award-nominated author Craig DiLouie brings a new twist to the cult horror story in a heart-pounding novel of psychological suspense.
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 was a recommended horror/thriller by my library. I'm always intrigued by cults, so it seemed right up my alley.  The book follows 4 adults who were the only survivors of a cult.  Years before when they were kids, the cult disappeared and the survived with no memory of what happened. Now an anniversary is coming up and the group is compelled to return to the mountain to finally figure out what happened. 

I had high hopes for this book, I was on board with it up until the last third of the book.  We get to see what happened a within the cult through each of the characters' perspectives in flashbacks.  I enjoyed those parts.  We get to see the buildup to how a small co-op community ended up becoming a doomsday cult.  We also get to see how the past has affected and shapes each character as an adult.  Where the book lost me was the amount of time it took for them to go back to the mountain.  Once they got there, I'm not even sure what happened.  I hated the ending.  I felt like I had no real answers after all of that buildup.  You all know I'm not a fan of ambiguous endings.  Maybe someone out there who has read it can explain to me what happened.  If you can ignore the ending, I would recommend checking out the book for the rest of it.