Review: Creed by Trisha Leaver and Lindsay Currie

Title:  Creed 

Author: Trisha Leaver and Lindsay Currie
Publisher: Flux
Publishing Date: November 8th 2014
Pages: 264
Genre: YA Psychological Horror
Series: Stand Alone
Source:  Paperback

  

Three went in. Three came out. None even a shadow of who they once were.

When their car breaks down, Dee, her boyfriend Luke, and his brother Mike walk through a winter storm to take refuge in a nearby town called Purity Springs. When they arrive, the emergency sirens are blaring and the small farming town seems abandoned. With no other shelter, they spend the night in an empty house.

But they soon discover that not everything in Purity Springs is as it seems. When the town's inhabitants suddenly appear the next morning, Dee, Luke, and Mike find themselves at the mercy of the charismatic leader, Elijah Hawkins, who plans to make Dee his new wife. Elijah's son, Joseph, offers to help them escape . . . but the price of his help may be more than Dee and her friends can bear. 

This read was one of my most anticipated reads of 2014 and I didn't quite get to it last year. I did finally read it this month and I enjoyed it. It wasn't quite what I expected and I was disappointed a bit but it was still a pretty good read. It did give me what I was looking for, chills, thrills, and all those scary feels. 

Three teenagers, Dee, her boyfriend Luke and Luke's brother go on a road trip. they run out of gas at this sleepy little town.... sometime in the evening. When they get there no one is around. The stores are empty, the houses are empty, and all the cars are empty. They stay the night and wake up to the worst nightmare ever. They are kidnapped, tortured, and more. The struggle begins to escape the evil town they are now trapped in. 

This book was insane. I can say that it was freaky and it was sadistic. It was everything I need in my horror stories. They only complaint I have .... I just wan to get it out of the way... was the ending. It felt rushed and incomplete to me. I feel that there was so much more that could have been done. The way it ended didn't bother me as much as the way it happened. Like I said it just felt rushed. I completely enjoyed and was enthralled in the first half of the book. The second half... once the escape was attempted... it just went a little downhill from there. 

What I loved was the crazy of the story. The evil was just evil. Dark, sadistic, loony tunes. It made the hair on my airs stand on edge, it made me cringe, it made me want to hide under my covers. This book really freaked me out and I liked it. 

There wasn't a huge connection to the characters but I think that is really hard to do in fast paced books and this was a very fast paced book. I liked the characters. I enjoyed Dee and her personality, her loyalty to her friends, her kindness, her bravery . She was a stand up character. I didn't really think much of Mike or Luke but they just weren't in the story as much. The story was told from Dee's point of view and pretty early on they were separated and stayed that way for most of the book. So I just didn't get to know them. Joseph was pretty cool. He was pretty selfish when it came to wanting to save his sister. Not that I didn't understand but he went through some pretty insane things to free his sister. Like kidnapping. 

The best character was Elijah and that was simply because he was so malicious and vile. I really enjoyed hating him and stabbing him in the eyes with pencils... in my thoughts. I haven't hated someone this much since... well not sure when but its been a long time. He was super easy to detest.

The story was pretty insane too. It seems to be a ton of cult books out there right now and it doesn't matter how disturbing they are, they seem to be an experience to read. This one for sure was one of the most insane ones I have read. If you like gruesome tales you need to read this one. Its pretty horrid. 

a very solid, wicked, terrifying read. 

Trisha Leaver resides on Cape Cod with her husband, three children, and one rather excitable black lab. Her YA Horror novel CREED is coming in Fall of 2014 from Flux. Her YA Contemporary THE SECRETS WE KEEP coming in the Winter of 2015 from FSG/Macmillan.

I live in Chicago, Illinois with one incredibly patient hubby, three amazing kids and one adorable, but irreverent Bullmastiff named Sam.
I am a proud member of SCBWI, The YA Scream Queens, The Horror Writers Association and OneFourKidLit, a community of authors with debuts upcoming in 2014. My debut novel, CREED (co-authored with Trisha Leaver), releases from Flux on November 8, 2014 and a second stand-alone novel, HARDWIRED releases Fall 2015. I am represented by Kathleen Rushall, of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. Any inquiries regarding my work should be sent to her attention.