Homemade Haunting by Rob Stennett

Book Title: Homemade Haunting

Author: Rob Stennett
Genre: Fiction, Christian, Suspense
ISBN: 978-0-310-32192-7
Publisher: Zondervan
Suggested Retail Price: 978-0-310-32192-7

From the book:

Charlie Walker is living his dream: he is finally writing his horror novel. But when he dabbles in the supernatural to get ideas for his book, strange things happen to him and his family. To take back his home from evil forces, he turns to God and becomes an unlikely hero in a supernatural battle.
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Charlie doesn't believe in God.  He lost his mother at a young age to cancer and is convinced that there is no God because God didn't save his mother from dying.  He has a good job as an English teacher and his wife and two children live in a nice neighborhood in a nice house.  His dream is to write a successful horror novel but he just can't seem to get it scary enough so that someone wants to publish it. He quits his job & moves his family to a rental house that is cheaper so he can write full time.

He decides that in order to write a scary story he needs to experience some of the things he's writing about so he goes out and buys a ouija board and starts experimenting.  All of a sudden strange things start happening in his house and to his family. He's so into writing his book that he doesn't realize what his obsession is doing to his family.  It finally gets so bad that his guardian angel steps in to warn him but he ignores his advice.  In the end he sees that he needs God to save his family but he's not sure if he's in time or not.

I have to say that I normally don't read books about the occult.  When I saw this offered by Zondervan I was intrigued because it had a Christian spin.  Part way through the book I was convinced that they had sent me the wrong book and instead of a Christian book had sent me a true occult book.   Thankfully, then the guardian angel stepped into the story and I was reassured.  This is a truly amazing book. I had a really hard time putting it down because I kept wanting to see how God was going to turn this around.  Charlie is convinced that he knows what the problem is and is doing his best to try to take care of it when that isn't really what the problem is at all. I don't want to tell you what the real problem is or how he fixes it but I can tell you that as soon as I read the quote in the book, a light bulb went off in my head.  Not only did it tell me what Charlie was doing wrong in his life but it really made me think about how that same statement applied to me too.  It's really more than a suspense story. It's an allegory that applies to just about all of us.  Don't be put off by the genre.  This truly is a Christian book and it has a much greater purpose than to be scary.

My thanks to the publicist for allowing me to review this book.

As required by the FTC: I received a product sample in order to write my review.  I received no monetary compensation.  All opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.