Review: The Everett Exorcism

The Everett Exorcism by Lincoln Cole
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Everett Exorcism was my first Lincoln Cole read, and I’m positive it will not be my last. I’ve been pulled into the World of Shadows series, and I’ll certainly be going on to read the sequels. I need to know what happens in The Vatican Children and The Bishop’s Legacy, I need to know how this story comes together.

The synopsis of this one instantly pulled me in, promising good old fashioned demonic activity. Whilst I love a good horror book, I do not pick them up as often as I would like. In all honesty, I’m rather biased when it comes to horror novels. I’m a big fan of eighties horror and most of the more recent horror writers fall short in my mind. There is some good stuff, but the eighties are what I consider to be the prime time of horror. With this one, whilst I did enjoy it, I wouldn’t call it that much of a horror. It certainly had the demonic factor, but I would place it in the supernatural thriller genre instead. There is darkness to be found, but it is not the kind of book to keep you up at night.

The first half of the book focuses upon Father Niccolo Paladina, slowly introducing us to the supernatural element of this story. It builds at a steady pace, snippets being given here and there. There is no major event – by this I mean no sudden death occurs nor does some drastic tragedy befall a character – rather it is a lot of little things. Things to let you know everything is not right, things to give you an insight into something more happening. At around the halfway point, we’re fully introduced to the true darkness of the story.

It's at this point that things change. Just as the supernatural becomes prevalent, we are introduced to another character. The story goes in a different direction to what you would expect, taking us back in time, hence my belief of this being more of a supernatural thriller. I also believe events referenced in the second half of the book link to another Lincoln Cole series, the World on Fire series. I cannot say for sure as I have not read the series, but I’m pretty certain such is the case. It’s left me interested in going and picking up that series, curious to see what happened.

As I said, though, the second half of the book does not go the way I had initially anticipated. It opened up something completely unexpected, leaving us with an idea of where the rest of the series will go. We do get to deal with the supernatural element of this particular story, the demonic element being dealt with, but this become secondary to the intrigue brought about through the information revealed. There really is so much more to this story than a simple demonic possession, and I’m intrigued to see where book two takes us.

Without a doubt, this is well worth the read for anyone looking for a new supernatural thriller series to dive into.

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