The Oath

by Frank E. Peretti

A brutal killer lurks near Hyde River in the Pacific Northwest. When wildlife biologist Steve Benson is called in to investigate the latest murder, he discovers that the victim is his brother. But why are the terrorized townspeople silent--and unwilling to help?Something evil is at work in Hyde River, an isolated mining town in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest. Under the cover of darkness, a predator strikes without warning--taking life in the most chilling and savage fashion.The community of Hyde River watches in terror as residents suddenly vanish. Yet, the more locals are pressed for information, the more they close ranks, sworn to secrecy by their forefathers' hidden sins.Only when Hyde River's secrets are exposed is the true extent of the danger fully revealed. What the town discovers is something far more deadly than anything they'd imagined. Something that doesn't just stalk its victims--it has the power to turn hearts black with decay as it slowly fills their souls with darkness.Standalone Christian thriller with over one million copies soldBook approximately 100,000 wordsIncludes discussion questions for book clubs

Genres: Christian Fiction, Fiction, Christian, Horror, Fantasy, Thriller, Mystery

560 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1995

About the author

FROM HIS WEBSITE:
With more than 12 million novels in print, Frank Peretti is nothing short of a publishing phenomenon and has been called “America’s hottest Christian novelist.”

Peretti is a natural storyteller who, as a youngster in Seattle, regularly gathered the neighborhood children for animated storytelling sessions. After graduating from high school, he began playing banjo with a local bluegrass group. He and his wife were married in 1972, and Peretti soon moved from touring with a pop band to launching a modest Christian music ministry. Peretti later spent time studying English, screen writing and film at UCLA and then assisted his father in pastoring a small Assembly of God church. In 1983, he gave up his pastoring position and began taking construction jobs to make ends meet. While working at a local ski factory, he began writing This Present Darkness, the book that would catapult him into the public eye. After numerous rejections from publishers and a slow start in sales, word-of-mouth enthusiasm finally lifted This Present Darkness onto a tidal wave of interest in spiritual warfare. The book appeared on Bookstore Journal’s bestseller list every month for more than eight years. Peretti’s two spiritual warfare novels, This Present Darkness (1998) and Piercing the Darkness (1989), captivated readers, together selling more than 3.5 million copies. The Oath was awarded the 1996 Gold Medallion Award for best fiction.

For kids, Peretti wrote The Cooper Kids Adventure Series (Crossways and Tommy Nelson), which remains a best-selling series for children with sales exceeding 1 million copies. In August 2000, Peretti released the hilarious children’s audiocassette series titled Wild and Wacky Totally True Bible Stories, reprising his role as Mr. Henry, the offbeat substitute Sunday School teacher found in two Visual Bible for Kids videos.

Peretti released his first-ever non-fiction book, The Wounded Spirit in 2000, which quickly became a best-seller. The book addresses the pain of “wounded spirits” and was written as a result of painful childhood experiences.

Frank Peretti and his wife, Barbara Jean, live in the Western U.S. In spite of sudden fame and notoriety, Frank still lives a simple, well-rounded life that includes carpentry, banjo making, sculpturing, bicycling and hiking. He is also an avid pilot.

Reviews

[Robert Beveridge · Rating 2 out of 5]

Frank Peretti, The Oath (Word, 1995)

I got this a few years back from my mother as a Christmas present. I pointed out to her that Peretti is widely known as a Christian author (one would think that the book's publisher, who also releases books by folks like Billy Graham, would have been a giveaway there), and her response was "it certainly doesn't sound like Christian fiction. It sounds like Stephen King." And Frank Peretti is, without doubt, the Christian version of Mr. King, both in subject matter and in sales figures that make the rest of the publishing industry quake in fear. One thinks that when Frank Peretti grows up, he wants to BE Stephen King. And with The Oath, he comes very, very close.

There's something very large, very nasty, and very hungry hanging around near the town of Hyde River. When it kills and half-eats an outsider, nature photographer Cliff Benson, Benson's brother Steve starts poking around. As he gets closer to the identity of the killer, however, he finds out that the town doesn't necessarily want to find out what killed Cliff Benson-and may go to great lengths to stop Steve from doing so, either.

Good, scary, keep-you-up-at-night stuff. And for the first four hundred pages of this five-hundred-odd page book, that's what it remains. The only thing during this portion of the book that keeps Peretti from achieving the standard of writing set by horror authors like Stephen King and Dan Simmons is that Peretti isn't quite as good at writing his minor characters; as with a lot of lesser lights in the horror genre, Peretti sets up some of his minor characters with the "I'm going to die in a few pages" signs on their foreheads and then leads them to their grisly ends. (For the record, at least Peretti's minor characters usually stick around for a while, and do have some other function aside from dying.) There's no real life in them the way there is in Peretti's major characters. And while this makes the book suffer, it's a forgivable thing, especially when the book is as fast-paced and readable as this one is.

Also in those first four hundred pages, before I start firing off criticisms at the end, Peretti does a great job with his symbolism and the obvious points he's trying to get across. Let's face it, you pick up a book by a Christian author published by a well-known Christian imprint, you know you're in for an object lesson. And in the first two-thirds of this book, Frank Peretti shows you what the word "parable" means. Everything is low-key, well-done, visible to those who know what to look for. Peretti even takes the secular convention of the local religious nut and bends it to his own ends in a wonderful way; Levi Cobb wouldn't be out of place in almost ay eighties horror novel I've ever read. Had he stayed right where he was and kept going in this vein till the end, The Oath might have hit my top ten reads of the year list.

Then everything went downhill... and fast.

The book's climax throws everything you just read about above out the window. Symbolism? Subtlety? Well-drawn characters? See you later. Peretti takes the velvet cover off the sledgehammer and starts beating. The message doesn't just become the medium, it overwhelms it. Those of you who have heard me trying to illustrate this particular point and haven't been able to follow what I'm talking about, read this book. You can see both good socially-conscious writing and bad socially-conscious writing in one fell swoop, and because you're still in the same story, it becomes obvious which is which.

Peretti's already got the skills to be a major player in the field, and judging from the first four hundred pages of The Oath, he's already better than most of the competition. Now, if he'd take a few tips in parable writing from authors like Madeleine L'Engle or Francois Mauriac, he could turn sales of two million copies into sales ten times that, and get his message across to secular readers as well-for isn't that the whole point? **

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book at a campsite in the mountains of Wyoming...expecting it to be a horror novel about murder in the mountains.... Turned out to be a horror novel with an evil monster lurking in the mountains. Needless to say, when I got to the end, all of the pages were ripped out. So I had to wait until the next day to go to the library to finish the last fifty pages. Damn that mountain man that used the ending of the book to keep the fire alive...

[Werner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Note, Aug. 16, 2022: I've just edited this review to add a content warning at the bottom.

Peretti is generally viewed as the dean of supernatural fiction writers in the commercial "Christian fiction" market (which he was largely single-handedly responsible for opening up to this genre). Although I haven't read any of his other work, I'd be inclined to say that he deserves his stature in the field. His characters (at least, in this novel) are utterly believable, fallible people; his plot is gripping, and perfectly paced; the Oregon mountain setting is well-drawn (the author makes his home in Oregon, or at least did at the time of this writing); and he writes with genuine psychological and spiritual insight.

It will not constitute a spoiler to reveal this much: the 19th- century founder of Hyde River, Benjamin Hyde, was a Satanist, who persuaded the townsfolk to bind themselves in a satanic pact; and the devil's physical presence continues to be embodied in a huge dragon which (unbeknown to outsiders) still haunts the area. The symbolism Peretti employs here resembles, in some ways, Hawthorne's in "The Bosom Serpent;" but the scale here is grander, the novel-length treatment allows for fuller plot and character development, and the much more lethal menace of the reptile here makes for far greater dramatic tension.

Given that this book was published by Thomas Nelson, it meets ECPA guidelines, and is sold in Christian bookstores belonging to the CBA; so the content was subjected to pretty strict scrutiny. But it does have an instance of unmarried sex (completely non-explicit). Apparently, this is still a serious negative point for some readers. (One Goodreader stated, in a review of a different book, that he felt "slimed" from reading this!) My own view of this is less uncritically negative. Peretti doesn't approve of unmarried sex, but he depicts it as a realistic part of the fallen world he's writing about, and uses it as a springboard for a character's ethical reflection and second thoughts. IMO, this is entirely consistent with what Christian fiction writers should be doing. If any direct fictional confrontation with this kind of thing is ruled illegitimate for Christian writers before they start, they're being asked to approach the depiction of human life with one eye blindfolded.

[Klasko · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book proves that Frank Peretti is the Stephen King of Christian fiction. I think I read this one in about a day and a night. I was worthless for the whole time I was reading it because I couldn't put it down. I read it while my husband was away on a business trip and then I wouldn't put it down until I finished it because my imagination about what might happen next creeped me out more than continuing to read it. So I read it until moving into the larger of the wee hours of the morning. All the while, with every turn of the page I wanted to scream at the characters, "No!!! Don't go there!" But they did.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

None of the reviews I’ve seen attempt to judge Oath on its merits as a thriller—only as a Christian thriller. I find this insulting and sad. The implication is that it is unfair or irrelevant to weigh Christian cultural/artistic efforts on the same scale as secular culture. This is akin to saying that it is unfair to judge art produced by women by the same standards as art produced by men; it’s patronizing and wrong. Bach wrote sacred music of enduring power and beauty—suck on that, Jars of Clay. The devotional poems of John Donne or Saint John of the Cross resonate with visceral passion and energy. Hieronymus Bosch’s paintings radiate the terror and fascination of sin. Their genius isn’t just Christian genius, though; it’s genius, period. Their work stands as tall on its artistic merits as its spiritual ones. In fact, I’d argue that their artistic value increases their spiritual worth, because one doesn’t have to be a believer to appreciate them. The Hallelujah Chorus can fill an inveterate atheist with religious awe. My guess is that Frank Peretti converts about as many non-Christians as Ann Coulter converts Democrats.

So, judged on its merits as a thriller, Oath is dreck. The prose is abysmal—plodding, repetitive amateur hour, drained of suspense. Oath is full of clunky passages like “Tracy Ellis didn’t want to answer that question. ‘I’m not going to answer that,’ she said.” As the spooky story it attempts to be, this book is a cheap house of horrors with the lights on. You see all the mechanical devices that are supposed to pop out and startle you from a mile away. Peretti’s description of the protagonist falling for his lady-friend is particularly excruciating. Peretti seems incapable of displaying attraction as anything but sleazy. No wonder so many of his Christian readers are disturbed by his descriptions of sin! His supposedly decent character’s “impure thoughts” are creepy and gross.

For those that still cry foul, who argue that Oath is still somehow worth my while despite being objectively awful, I must add that theologically, Oath is also, sadly, dreck. One doesn’t have to read past the introduction to find this out. In that introduction, the author reveals his inspiration and purpose for writing this book. He was judging some friends of his for their sinfulness, but alas, he did not judge them loudly enough, and they sinned even more. Peretti wrote Oath so neither he nor his readers would ever again tragically miss an opportunity to judge their friends and neighbors. It’s just like Christ said: “Judge not, lest ye become a New York Times bestselling author.”

Of course, the insular, self-righteous un-charitablity extends beyond the introduction. I could write a thesis on the many ways in which this book gives Christianity a bad name. Stereotype one: religion reinforces misogyny: check. In this book, women separated from their husbands lose sanity and personhood. They are frantic, irrational agents of unfocused destruction who must be controlled through marriage to a strong-willed man. I wonder how single gals Mary and Martha or their best pal (Jesus) would feel about that. Stereotype two: religion cannot co-exist with rational thought: check. Are we not all sick of this yet? The titular oath is a pact to make Reason a small town’s only God. Cue the hysterical fears about godless scientists and public schoolteachers now, folks. Fortunately, Peretti had the spiritual integrity not expose himself to any of that dangerous Reason in his research for this novel. He mentions it, but he and his characters seem blissfully innocent of what it actually is. Stereotype three: Christians are judgmental hypocrites: check. For a man that professes to worship a loving God, Peretti evinces great relish as he dooms sinner after sinner to a horrific terrestrial death followed, one assumes, by eternal suffering in hell. Is a lake of fire that burns but never consumes not enough for this guy? Why must his sinners also be punished, horribly, all out of proportion to their actions, here on Earth? That doesn’t sound like Christianity to me—it sounds like fascism. Peretti is genuinely unwilling to engage with ideas that oppose his own. He can’t conceive of a charitable humanist, even though charity is the cornerstone of humanism. He doesn’t deserve to be taken seriously because he doesn’t take non-Christians seriously. How can he persuasive if he doesn’t understand that against which he argues? Like his own protagonists, he can’t really see the monster he’s trying to fight.

In Romans, the apostle Paul writes that God gives each of his children different gifts. It is not my job to judge the state of Peretti’s soul. In judging the state of his art, however, I have to hope that his spiritual gifts lie elsewhere. And to any Christians out there whose consciences don’t allow them to consume secular art, and whose tastes don’t run to seventeenth century devotional poetry, may I recommend Steven King’s The Stand? It’s a Christian thriller, I swear—about the end of times, no less. And it’s, you know…good.

[Alexandra Swann · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. I read it many years ago right after it first came out, but for me it remains the quintessential classic Christian fiction. Peretti's dragon is a great analogy for how sin blends in around us and works almost unseen until it devours us.

In my opinion this book is Frank Peretti's best work--and I have read a lot of his books. Great storytelling with a great message.

[Debbie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a interesting read and a little scary, had twist and turns and over 600 pages. I would recommend this book to adults and young adults.

[Mothlight · Rating 1 out of 5]

I've never read Frank Peretti's stuff before and had no idea he was a prolific Christian author, so when I got a mouth full of Jesus in the middle of a book about a dragon who eats a bunch of people, I wasn't happy. The book was shelved in the horror section! Heavy-handed bible beatings never came with bigger surprise before I picked up The Oath. I think I still have the concision years later.

It's not a bad read, I guess. The suspense will probably keep you turning pages, and the gory scenes are detailed enough to satisfy typical Stephen King fans. There were hints here and there about the overarching Christian theme, but I don't have any inherent problems with that. Biblical allusions can be sweeping, lyrical, beautiful. What I DO have a problem with is PREACHING. The Oath has the subtly of a cross shaped jackhammer drilling holes in your head. You can hear the creaking of Peretti's finger as he wags it at you, the VERY SINFUL READER. Are you a woman? He wags that finger extra hard if you are.

[✨Susan✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mmmm..just 3.5 for me. I know I am in the minority with that rating. It was hard for me to get through the middle of this book, it seemed to drag out before the big reveal.

[Barbara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fictional story that addresses the very real sin that dwells within each of us.
The first 1/3 of the book is very interesting; then, as I read it, I found myself falling asleep through the next 1/3. But the last 1/3, when all the ends start tying up and the pieces fall into place, I literally could not but the book down.
The author did an excellent job describing the mountainous area in which the story takes place. I felt like I was really there. His style of dialogue was o.k. A tad stereotypical. There are a few scenes that are gory and one that is sensual but Peretti did a good job with describing just enough of what was going on and then letting your imagination fill in the blanks.
When I first read this book, I was a young teenager and too distracted by all the excitement to grasp the message. I just finished reading it a second time last week. What I missed those years ago was a good reminder for me now: take care of your sin, no matter how old or hidden it is, today. You don't know if you will have tomorrow.

[Faith · Rating 5 out of 5]

There is a little bit of everything in this book. A bit of romance, action, mystery, thrill, fear, and of course a good moral & lesson in the end. I was able to read this novel for hours and never grow tired. Frank Peretti has never disappointed me yet with his novels and is one of my favorite authors. His stories are comtemporary and extremely addicting. This is the first books I read by him. I was about 13 or 14 when I first read this book. I saw it on my parents bookshelf and wanted to read it because the artwork on the cover was so mysterious I wanted to be able to place a story behind that picture.

[Ashley Bogner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good. Really creepy, but really good.

I won't say too much, since this book is hard to explain without giving spoilers, but I will say that The Oath is a deep, thought-provoking novel with a theme that sticks with you long after you've read the final page. It's creepy, as in don't-read-before-bed creepy, and is definitely not a fun, light read. But I love how Frank Peretti isn't afraid to include overt Christian themes in his books.

*Content Note: two characters have sex outside of marriage (nothing graphic is described), but it is made clear that doing so was wrong. There are also a few references to affairs and prostitution.

[Lynai · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ah, Frank Peretti, you did it again! Review coming up.

EDIT: Here are my thoughts on this book:

Frank Peretti is love.

He is one of my most favorite authors when it comes to Christian fiction. I have read and loved The Darkness Set, especially Piercing the Darkness, while Prophet is waiting to be read in my shelf. The Oath is a gift given by my dear husband last year (a little trivia: Gian is a Peretti fan too. He gave me a copy of This Present Darkness as his first “courtship” gift, haha) but it is only recently that I was able to read it. This is one of my required readings for April but wedding planning and the wedding itself got in the way of my reading, so to speak, I was only able to finish this on the first week of May. As for writing the review, I only got to post this today, for exactly the same reasons.

Now on to the sort-of-review, which is actually more of a raving.

The Oath is a thick book, somehow its size had intimidated me. The first few chapters were a little bit dragging but the pace picks up gradually halfway through and the suspense just keeps building until it finally ends with a very powerful resolution. Despite its thick volume, this book is a very engaging read, especially for me who always love a good mystery story.

But more than just a story of suspense and mystery, The Oath is actually about sin and Peretti, in his ingenuity, decided to give a tangible form to it. In his Introduction in the book, Peretti started with this line:

“Sin is the monster we love to deny.”

Continue reading.

[Marie Sexton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't know how I ended up with this book on my shelf, but I'm a fan of horror and monster stories, so I obviously picked up a used copy somewhere along the way. I wish it had been MARKED as Christian fiction. It wasn't. (Not the edition I own, at any rate.)

The book started out okay. The prose was tedious, lots of telling instead of showing, but it wasn't all bad, so I kept going. Wasn't until the third act that it became clear it's all about being saved. Find Jesus, y'all, or a dragon will eat you!

I guess I'll give it two stars instead of one, because I did make it 2/3 through before I started skimming.

[Lovely Day · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75⭐️

A body is found severed in two across the torso with the top half missing. It is suspected to be the unlikely vicious mauling of a bear. However when the dead man’s brother comes to town in search of proper answers, secrets begin to unravel and sin reveals its true self.

I liked this book-but didn’t love it. I felt like it was longer than necessary with repeated discussion among the characters about theories about what could be going on. Also some abuses of God’s name.

The villain is meant to be representative of sin in our lives, but that parallel felt a bit too forced.

I also felt like this book and Monster by Ted Dekker had very similar vibes

[Janie Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

At first I was not real sure about reading this book due to an attempt to read another from this author that I was unable to finish. It made me just a little leary. I must say though, I was not disappointed with The Oath at all. It is very well written and it had all the suspence, thiller, chills and excitement that I love to read. There were points that I had a hard time putting it down.

I have to say though, if you dont like Christian fiction, then you will probably not like this book as you near the end of the story as ideas become a bit more apparent to the reader. I however loved it. The comparison between the reality and the surrealism of this story is absolutely brilliant. I can't applaud the Author enough. This book is so deserving of a 5 star rating. I look forward to more from Peretti.

[Michael · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first half of the book really was quite good and hooked me pretty fast. Then things started getting preachy (I didn't realize Peretti was a Christian author). Stripped of the religion, this could have been a very good book. There were some other complaints I had - namely, characters start acting erratic and oddball with no real explanation or reason.

I will say, if you're a fan of Horror and Christian authors, you'll really enjoy this, I do give Peretti credit as a good writer, where things weren't too preachy, the story was quite enjoyable.

[Toi Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not what I thought it would be, but I liked it. The Oath tells the story of a town with so many secrets that people are beginning to die because of them, but maybe this has been going on for a while. At the beginning of the story it is a stranger from out of town who’s the victim of a horribly violent death that begins to bring light to the existence of the Oath. The Oath itself is a little difficult to grasp, but it seems that the people of this town have collectively decided to do whatever they want at any time and never speak of it, proudly defying the notion of consequence or sin. As everyone knows, no secret is kept forever and in Hyde River, the silence has manifested itself with terrifying results.

This book was a short and easy story to traverse. The imagery was in-depth, but not wordy. I felt as if the whole story was delivered in a matter-of-fact kind of way, as if the author was telling you the story at your house over coffee. I think what I liked best about the book was how real it seemed. I’m pretty sure I’ve been to that small town on more than one occasion. A place where people point the finger at one another, but never actually says anything.

From a fantasy perspective, the physical manifestation of sin is one of the scariest monsters I’ve come across in a while. I was intrigued by the hunting sequences and the whole predatory and prey struggle. There is absolutely nothing vulgar about this story, but it does touch on many sensitive subjects such as: infidelity, substance abuse, greed and pride, and more.

Me being me, I also liked the spiritual aspects of the story. This is definitely an adult read, but while younger children may not be able to understand the imagery or handle the dark elements, and some teens may not be able to grasp the maturity of some themes, I think this is good story for anyone.

[Clare · Rating 1 out of 5]

Should have done some research on this author before buying the audible version. As soon as I realized the answer to the problem was Jesus, I couldn't go on.

[Lindsey Mast · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had read this book ages ago in high school, but appreciated the symbolism much more this time around as an adult. Knocked off a star because good grief you should be able to tell a solid story without it being 550 pages long 🫠

[Anne Hawn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of Peretti’s best. The plot centers on the effect of evil on the human soul. Professor Steve Benson, comes to the town of Hyde River because his brother, Cliff, has been killed by some enormous animal that seems to defy description. It is assumed that he was mauled by a bear, but Steve, with a Ph.D in Biological Science and a professorship at Colorado State University teaching environmental science and biology, is not satisfied. He and the conservation officer of Fish and Game manage to kill the rogue bear thought to have been large enough to inflict the damage, but are very unsatisfied with the findings of the post-mortem of either Cliff or the bear.

As the plot develops, it appears that there is more wrong than just a habituated bear. The town is full of mystery and people are united against any outsiders. There seems to be a conspiracy of silence and actual hostility towards Steve. The only one helping is the attractive deputy, Tracy Ellis. She grew up in Hyde River but seems to have some objectivity about troubles in the town, and she doesn’t believe that it was a bear that killed Cliff Benson.

What has happened to Maggie Bly, wife of Harold Bly? Why does Bly have so much control of the people of the town? Why is there such a concerted effort to mislead and drive out Steve Benson? What is the oath that the people of the town took more than 100 years ago, and what does it have to do with Cliff’s death? What are the ominous, dark, oozing sores that appear over the hearts of many in the town?

What follows it the depiction of evil and what it does to a people. Steve learns about the evil that resides in his own heart as he gets closer and closer to the evil in the town. The pace is fast and keeps the reader involved in the chase while Steve desperately tries to find meaning in the evidence that seems to go against everything modern society seems to consider normal.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

I first read The Oath just prior to its original release as a review copy. I remember being pretty blown away at the time. I had just read two of Peretti's "Darkness" novels which were well-done, and come off a disappointment in reading "Prophet." This was, in my mind, Peretti's comeback.

It's been many years since I last read it, but I recently came across this paperback edition for $1 and couldn't pass it up. It remains a good novel in my view, and stands out among Peretti's best.

The story begins with a terrifying chase through a dark forest. A man has just been brutally killed, possibly eaten, in a truly horrific attack in the Pacific Northwest wild. His brother, a wildlife biologist, investigates the attack with a local sheriff's deputy. Both of them come up against the strange beliefs and superstitions of the people inhabiting the nearby town of Hyde River. Steve, the biologist, insists on getting to the truth of how and why his brother died, but unexpectedly finds himself fighting battles on every possible front as he realizes the creature who attacked is now after him.

The book is almost as enjoyable as it was the first time I read. It no longer takes my breath away, but how many books can do that after you already know what's coming next? The only real criticism I have is that its allegory is far, far too obvious in its symbolism. In this edition, Peretti spells it out in the preface - this is what my book is all about.

Shouldn't the reader be able to decide that for themselves? Are readers so stupid that they won't understand what Peretti is trying to say through the story?

This is the big problem I have with Christian fiction by evangelicals. The focus is on the message, not the story itself - where an art form is concerned, that approach is exactly backwards.

To Peretti's credit, he later co-wrote "House" with Ted Dekker, which dealt with similar themes but without the sermonizing to weaken an otherwise very strong story.

[Savannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, it was a pretty great thriller that kept me thinking.

It didn't read as fast as I would have liked, it did take me a little while to get through it, but it's also a nice chunk of tree to put on ones bookshelf, so I suppose that makes sense.

It certainly does a good job of keeping you on your toes and your heart racing, especially in the beginning and the last half. I mean, the hero is hunting a freaking invisible being that marks people in a way that causes them to go crazy, and then eats them!

It starts out with this woman running hysterically through the woods until she is discovered by a logger, and she attempts to attack his truck. Her husband has just been killed in a most gruesome way and the police are trying to pass it off as a bear, but as one very special small towns secret's begin to emerge some are speculating that it wasn't a bear at all. But just what was it?
That's where it begins to get really interesting.
From attempted murders and ancient oaths, to tracking a beast that just might be tracking you, The Oath is an excellent, thrilling story.

On a more philosophical level, the story is an excellent allegory of how sin "eats us". It really gives you reason to think about your own life, and how you're living. Definitely made me re-think some things.

[Udai · Rating 2 out of 5]

Steve Benson goes to Hyde river to investigate the death of his brother, what starts as a hunting for a grizzly bear turns out to be much more.

In the first two thirds of the book we come to realize that the town is hiding a big secret and Steve encounters an invisible monster. The writing and details are good and the reader gets the classic horror novel he paid for.

In the last third though things spiral down. What could’ve been a symbolic novel starts shoving God in our faces at every corner. The writing gets slobby and Steve beats a dragon by screaming Jesus at its face.

This book is about a group of people with superstitious beliefs who refuse to question their way of thinking. The book marvels at the absurdity of the situation. The fact that this is written as a promotion for religion baffles me.

[Sarita · Rating 3 out of 5]

Okay, so Frank Peretti is a master at writing speculative Christian fiction where the reader is being taken to a fictional world with such a deeper meaning/message. This one was no different. There was a lot of times I struggled to put the story down, though life and sleep required it, but other times I also found it okayish.

The representation of the dragon as the devil and the "black goo" as our sin and how it can stench our lives was well done.

I just found myself loving and more than this one.

[Mike (the Paladin) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Don't get me wrong, I really like Frank Peretti. I've had recordings of him speaking, I've read several of his books. I think The Visitation is an incredibly good book.

Unfortunately I can't say the same about this one. I didn't even finish it (I almost put "couldn't finish it", but I suppose I could have forced myself. It just didn't seem worth it.). I found the story itself somewhat at fault. This might have worked better as a youth book. if I go deeper into why, I'll give the BIG secret away, but it really doesn't work here (I don't think). As I said, maybe this plot device would work better as a youth book.

[J.S. Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup."

All silliness aside, I like how Peretti used the dragon as a metaphor showing how we can be enslaved by our sins. And the townspeople made me so mad! They were too stubborn to change their ways even though it was clear that they were going to be eaten if they didn't. Which makes me wonder: how many of us are like that in real life? Now I'll have to chew on that for awhile...

[Emily ✞ || [fallon's vrs]]

This review is written by my little brother

First of all when you start reading this it instant thrill, blood, darkness, a giant figure...GASP. Then you get to Steve (awesome but has his flaws 😕) a chilling darkness get woman... Maggie...the dark spot... dang bro I'm giving my self chills duag. anyway great book don't want to give away to many deets. geez I sound like a high school girl being like toasts abrieving, lol.

flaws: get a little slow in some spots

ps. I love Jesus

[Brittney Condren · Rating 5 out of 5]

AHHHHH! Don’t read this if you dream what you read. Lol The allegory of what sin can do to your life in this book is very powerful. When ignored, sin can become a huge monster, slowly drawing you in, until it’s too late. This is one of those books you could read many times and get something new out of it each time. Absolutely phenomenal

[Carina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Read this in high school and was recently (unfortunately) reminded that it exists. The only reason I remember it was because of how much I hated it. Maybe I would enjoy it better as an adult, but old grudges die hard, especially when it comes to books.