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richtate's review
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Thomas Old Heuvelt’s novels are some of the most imaginative in modern horror. They’re a melting pot of jagged edges. The slow burn is agonizing. The payoff is delicious.
thereadingraccoon's review
dark
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
Oracle is a paranormal horror novel about a group of people affected by the discovery of a ghost ship stranded in the middle of a field in the Netherlands.
The character of Robert Grim is back after the devastation of the cursed town of Black Spring. Now something paranormal has occurred, and he’s pulled out of his life as a hermit in Atlantic City to investigate. An 18th-century ship has appeared overnight in a farmer’s field in the Netherlands, and every local who has gone inside to investigate has never reappeared. The ship becomes a political tool of various covert government and military groups, and Grim is quickly sidelined despite his expertise. In order to save young Luca (a teenager who lost both his best friend and father to the ship), Grim will have to stay one step ahead of the Dutch secret service and its villainous operative, Eleanor. But the ship is just part of a long unfulfilled desire of devastation by an ancient being, and Luca is the key to discovering what it wants.
I enjoyed the beginning of this book when it was limited to the terror of what the ship can do and the addition of Robert Grim (who could be an elderly Fox Mulder by this point), but then it goes off the rails, and I wasn’t sure what was happening. Whether it’s cultural or lost in translation, I just didn’t vibe with the last portion of the book or the overarching ancient evil and what it was asking.
⭐️⭐️⭐️
🎧 Audio notes: Oracle was narrated by Nathaniel Priestley, who does an excellent job with the story, but it seemed on the slow side, and I felt like it flowed better sped up to 1.25x.
* A free advanced copy of Oracle was provided by Macmillan Audio in exchange for an honest and unbiased review.
readinggrrl's review
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
lilibetbombshell's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
Note: You technically don’t have to read Olde Heuvelt’s book HEX in order to read Oracle, but I don’t think I would’ve understood the character of Robert Grim at all (nor some major parts of the book) without having read HEX first. So I’m going to advise you to read HEX first but I can’t make you do so. You do you.
Somehow, Robert Grim survived the events of the book HEX and has been living at the government’s leisure in a penthouse apartment in Atlantic City. Sure, he’s a miserable hermit of an alcoholic…but he’s alive.
Then one day the government comes knocking at his door, telling him his service is needed because he’s the only one they have with a particular skill set. He doesn’t really have a choice to say no, and so they’re off for the Netherlands because apparently, a “ghost ship” that looks like it should be at the bottom of the ocean is sitting in the middle of a tulip field and some people have gone in the hatch and, well, disappeared.
Robert Grim doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to enter a moral, ethical, and political quagmire that will bring back some of his oldest and darkest memories, but will also maybe give him some closure on why he’s still here when so many have gone.
Oracle isn’t as brilliant or compelling as HEX, but comparing these two books is a waste of time because we’re comparing two totally different kinds of horrors. Oracle is about more of an eldritch horror: This horror is older than old, incomprehensibly large, ineffable and implacable. It is life and death, baptism and damnation. The horrors in Oracle also cross over time. It’s a larger story with a larger cast of characters and more locales, so it takes more time to get the story going, to get the players moving, and to gain momentum. (HEX, if you’ll recall, was a faster vehicle because it took place almost entirely in one time period, everyone was contained to one village, and the evils were not as ineffable or incomprehensible).
The premise is compelling, the characters are interesting and sometimes downright loveable, the plot is interesting, and once the story really gets going I became very invested in seeing how it all would end. Once I realized just how evil the evil was getting I got even more excited. The climactic scenes toward the end of the book are extremely well-written and almost cinematic in scale. Loved it.
I was provided a copy of this title by NetGalley and the author. All thoughts, opinions, views, and ideas expressed herein are mine and mine alone. Thank you.
yara_adorablebooks's review against another edition
4.0
3,5 ster!
Een heel spannend en luguber verhaal. Ik vond het echt heel tof opgebouwd! Maar het was toch wat ongeloofwaardig. Hoofdpersonage was 13 maar gedroeg zich veel ouder. Al met al, een leuk boek om te lezen.
Een heel spannend en luguber verhaal. Ik vond het echt heel tof opgebouwd! Maar het was toch wat ongeloofwaardig. Hoofdpersonage was 13 maar gedroeg zich veel ouder. Al met al, een leuk boek om te lezen.
pomeranian_poltergeist's review
dark
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
wsm123's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5