Series: The Books of History Chronicles

Author: Ted Dekker

Genre: Horror, Suspense

Ted Dekker likes to have the reader asking, “What’s going on?!” after they have read the first page or two. Halfway through the book, he again wants the reader to exclaim, “Wait, what is going on here?!!!!” And then, at the end, he definitely desires them to cry out, “Wait! What?! No Way! WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!” And he definitively does so in Skin.

Skin has the basics of the horror genre, as I see them, at least. A killer at large who seems unstoppable and who appears to be able to kill whenever he so desires, which just so happens to be right now, and just about everyone he comes across. The deaths are not necessarily pretty, but Dekker does not dwell on the grisly details very much at all.

The book itself reads at the high pace which Dekker has become known for, a page-turner to the very end. Though it appears to have them in places, it doesn’t have as many fantastical elements in it as some of his other books. In my mind, the characters were intriguing and interesting, though the way they developed, in some ways, was slightly predictable. But that would have been the only predictable element of the book. I kept expecting him to take it on direction and he would twist it a different one. The climactic end was reminiscent of an M. Night Shamalayan movie – quite a twist!

As in all his books, there is no real profanity and neither are there really any sexual situations or explicit sexual encounters. There is relational tension, but that’s about it.

This book, while definitely written from a Christian perspective, carries virtually no overt Christian messages. The primary theme of the book, that everyone is “ugly” down into their hearts, is a Biblical theme, but never referenced so in the book. In this sense Skin is a more ‘secular’ book than any other of Dekker’s I have read.

The book does take place in the world of the Circle Trilogy, falling under the more general category of The Books of History Chronicles, which is the overarching literary world where The Circle Trilogy (Black, Red, and White) takes place. While not belonging to that trilogy or The Paradise Novels (Showdown, Saint, and Sinner) or The Lost Books (Chosen, Infidel, Renegade, Chaos, Lunatic, and Elyon), it does belong to the same ‘world’ and timeline as those books as well as House (written with Frank Peretti). A little confusing, but you really don’t need to have read any them to appreciate it. Dekker apparently intended it to help bridge the gap between some of those different series in the world of The Books of History Chronicles, but I haven’t read all of them so I’m not quite sure which ones. But you could buy, read, and enjoy this book without having read any of the others – I think some characters bleed over, but nothing too significant.

In the end, Skin is another excellently executed book by Ted Dekker. It’s not a necessarily ‘deep’ read, but it is very intriguing and is quite a page-turner. I highly recommend it!

Worldview: Christian

Recommended Age: High School age, primarily due to the violence/killing and some of the subject matter in the book.

Series: The Books of the History Chronicles; Paradise Novels, Book 2

Author: Ted Dekker

Genre: Action, Fantasy

This is a shining example of why Dekker is one of the premier Christian authors in Christian publishing. It is nice that he has begun to cross over more and more, striving to keep his novels less “Christianized” while still retaining a more Christian perspective and interpretation of the world. Dekker writes with almost a frantic pace – I write “almost” because though the pace of the book is rather intense, it never feels hurried or rushed. Some writers can tend to get lost in the details of their story, but not Dekker, he keeps his stories moving, moving, moving, and I like that!

Colt is an assassin of unusual skill, almost superhuman in his capacity to kill. But he has no memory of who he was. The story starts with him having to kill to save his wife and son who have been kidnapped. Afterwards he awakes to find that he has no family, that the kills were only a test of his ability to perform under extreme circumstances. And the story gets a little more convoluted from there – but not overwhelmingly so, but just enough to keep you guessing.

As most of his books, this one entails a confrontation, at some level, between good and evil. Some people are more than they seem, and the reality of what is at stake goes deeper than saving the President’s life. My only irritation in the book was how Dekker was a bit vague on exactly how good triumphed over evil in the final showdown – he seemed to hint at it, but a little more specificity would have been nice.

For how degenerate the villian is, he used no profanity, which is slightly odd, in retrospect. On the other hand, Dekker does do a pretty good job of making his personifications of evil rather psychotic. The Englishman (as he was called) enjoyed finalizing conversations with himself with this interesting phrase: “Hallelujah, amen, you are dismissed.”

Though violent, the book is clear of any sexual situations or scenarios, so the violence is the primary hesitation for recommending it for readers in or below Middle School.

The book is related to Dekker’s Circle Trilogy, and falls into what is called the Paradise series, which starts with Showdown (which is referenced in this book, and several characters from it are featured herein) and ends with Sinner. All of these, along with about eight or nine other books fall under a broader ‘univerese’ of literary reality which Dekker has categorized as ‘The Books of History Chronicles.’ All that to say the book stands pretty well on its own, though having read Showdown definitely contributed to my understanding of the background and setting of the book. You don’t necessarily have to read the Circle Trilogy (though I highly, highly recommend it), but it forms a foundation for the Chronicles.

In the end I do highly recommend this book. It’s definitely worth the time to read it – and it’s not a hard read. You pick up and then realize two hours later that you should turn out the light and go to sleep. So you read ‘just a few more paragraphs’ for about a half an hour until you finally force yourself to turn out the lights…and I digress. It’s a great, fun book. I would primarily categorize it in the Action genre, but it has fantastical elements as well, so it kind of meanders it’s way into that genre near the end.

Worldview: Christian

Recommended Age: A mature middle school aged child could probably handle the subject matter, but due to the violence I would recommend high school age as the minimum.

Genre: Horror

Author: Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I picked up this book. I knew it should be good, because both of these authors have established themselves as excellent writes, specifically for Christian audiences. Though I could tell by the development of the storyline and plot that this book was specifically aimed at both Christian and non-Christian audiences, it still had much of the feel of a Christian book.

That being said, it is definitely better written than most Christian fiction and would probably be a great book to recommend to non-Christians. The writing bears more of Dekker’s style than Peretti’s, though the overall setting and story arc bear Peretti’s fingerprints admirably.

The story itself centers around the estranged marriage of Jack and Stephanie, a starting point that many Americans (at least) are familiar with and can probably relate to rather easily. They get stranded on the road under mysterious circumstances and end up seeking shelter for the night in a Inn they come across. Yep, sounds like the makings of a horror story if I’ve ever heard ‘em!

The plot and action move quickly and the characters unfold and develop unobtrusively. There is a lot of tension and panic, common to the horror genre, but it never gets out of control. What it seems that Perretti and Dekker were aiming at was to reveal how easily the facade of character an individual has can crumble and wash away in the presence of true terror, and how a person needs something (or someone) other than themselves to lean on and trust in to help them through situations.

In the end I don’t think this is either author’s best work. Peretti’s Oath was just brilliant, and Dekker’s Circle Trilogy has a depth and movement to it which many secular works lack. This was a teaming of two incredible talents, but I think in the end the struggle to harness and mesh their particular creative talents (which definitely run in different directions) produced a worthy story, but just one that doesn’t quite reach the potential of either.

I do recommend this book, though I think your time would be just as well spent reading other works by the authors. Due to the violence and some more mature sexual themes, I would definitely not recommend this to anyone not in High School.

Worldview: Christian

Recommended Age: High School age, due to violence and sexual themes.

Additional links:

Peretti’s official website
Dekker’s official website
House
Wikipedia Page

Series: The Circle Trilogy

Genre: Fantasy

Author: Ted
Dekker

This is the first of a trilogy – but don’t be intimidated by the fact that you must read three books to journey through all of Dekker’s tale. This is an incredible fantasy, written with such a furious pace that it is hard to put down. I was wise enough to not start any of the three books until I had all of them – unfortunately for my wife I did have all of them when I started reading them, and I just went from one to the next to the final one. Incredible!

On the surface it’s an incredibly imaginative fantasy, written in a world where a fantastical realm lies just out of reach of the the everyday world we live in (or does it?), and one man stumbles across the breach. On a deeper level it’s an anology almost on par with C.S. Lewis’ Lion, Witch, and Wardrobe.

If you can tell, I don’t like to give much of the story away (I love the thrill of finding everything out for the first time, and I like to share that!), but suffice it to say that Dekker weaves a very nice web of a plot throughout the three books.

This book, to me, raised more questions that it answered (which it should have, being the first book), so I would highly suggest making sure you have easy access to the other two books (Red and White) before you begin this one.

Worldview: Christian

Suggested Age: Due to the violence (it’s got some great fighting in it!) and some surface level sexual innuendo (nothing explicit or coarse) I would suggest it for high school age students and up.

Additional links:

Author’s Website