The Influence - Matthew John Slick

Being a fan of Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, I kept seeing this pop up as a comparable spiritual warfare thriller.  For a time, I tracked it.  It was only $3.99, but that genre is kinda iffy for me.  I normally really like it or I don't.  When this book popped up for free, I felt it worth a try.

In the beginning, we are switching back and forth between and husband and wife, her father and angels and demons.  The husband, Mark, has been struggling with his son's death.  SIDS has taken his son and he can't find any answers on why it happened.  The questions are what is eating him up inside.  A demon takes this opportunity to push Mark to almost commit suicide.

Kathy has watched her husband's depression get worse over time and she's not sure what she can do to help him.  When her father falls ill, she travels to go take care of him.  On the way, a demon tries to involve her in a car accident.

During both these encounters, we get glimpses of John, Kathy's father.  He wakes up occasionally and prays for the couple, keeping them safe.  We also see the interactions between the angels and the demons.

I'm not saying this is a horrible book.  I'm saying it's just not for me.  I trudged my way until about 10% and then put it down.  I understand that the author was trying to portray the world of the angels as seamless with our world by weaving them together, but it felt disjointed to me.  One paragraph was about the humans and then we switched to the angels with  no transitions.  I also had to re-read some sentences to make sure I knew what was going on.  I didn't like the style of writing and I felt the plot was moving at a sluggish pace with unnecessary amounts of repetitive details.  It just wasn't my kind of book.