Frank Edward Peretti (born January 13, 1951) is a New York Times best-selling author of Christian fiction, whose novels primarily focus on the supernatural. To date, his works have sold over 15 million copies worldwide.
Three of his works have been adapted into movies: Hangman's Curse, The Visitation, and House.
Frank Peretti's published works include:
- The Cooper Kids Adventure Series 1985-200? - best described as a Christian Indiana Jones
- The Door in the Dragon's Throat
- Escape from the Island of Aquarius
- The Tombs of Anak
- Trapped at the Bottom of the Sea
- The Secret of the Desert Stone
- The Deadly Curse of Toko-Rey
- The Legend of Annie Murphy
- Mayday at Two Thousand Feet/Flying Blind
- This Present Darkness - 1986, one of his best-known works
- Piercing the Darkness - its sequel, published in 1989
- Tilly
- The Oath - 1995
- The Visitation - 1999
- The Veritas Project - another young adult series
- Hangman's Curse - 2001, adapted into a low-budget film in 2003note
- Nightmare Academy
- Monster - 2005
- House - 2006, co-written with Ted Dekker
- Illusion - 2012
Tropes common to Frank Peretti novels:
- Academy of Evil: The Nightmoore Academy in the Veritas Project series.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness name almost all of the demons using this trope.
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Anvilicious: Peretti has a point to make, and you're not going to miss it. He can be a bit heavy-handed, but usually avoids Author Tract. - Anyone Can Die: Hero or villain, it's almost guaranteed not everyone is going to make it to the ending. Tilly might be the only exception.
- Black-and-White Morality: While the characters themselves can be drawn in shades of gray, the conflict typically falls into this on a grand scale — which makes sense, given that demons, angels, and God are frequently implied, if not outright stated, to be involved in the events.
- Combined Energy Attack: The "prayers of the saints" are what literally empower God's Angels in This Present Darkness and Piercing The Darkness.
- Creator Provincialism: A resident of the American Northwest, many of his books take place there.
- Darker and Edgier: To most other Christian fiction out there. Has been described as "The Christian Stephen King"; many of his books count as "horror" fiction. See below.
- Dug Too Deep: The Door in the Dragon's Throat features a deep, dangerous cave at the bottom of which lurks a massive, ornate door. The protagonists are hired by a stereotypical rich local with a bad case of Gold Fever to find the key, which purports to open the way to untold treasure. The Door actually holds back a demonic force of untold power that is strongly implied to be Abaddon the Angel of the bottomless pit himself and his followers.
- Earn Your Happy Ending
- Epigraph: In The Oath, chapters occasionally open with quotes from letters, diaries, news reports, and interviews to set the atmosphere for Hyde River.
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: Unlike some Christian authors, Peretti is not afraid of having terrible things happen to his characters, not even in his young adult series, which feature, among other things, flying slugs with skin-melting slime, mind rape, and multiple near death experiences.
- For the Evulz
- Good Shepherd: A frequent character type, with a few of the more sinister variety hidden in as well.
- Happily Married
- Intro-Only Point of View: Almost all his books begin from the point of view of a side or background character who might not survive the experience.
- Mauve Shirt
- Number of the Beast: Nightmare Academy has a rather contrived situation near the end of the book in which a row of buildings is being demolished and one of the characters needs to stop it by putting in a code that corresponds to... some technical detail. Anyway, it ends up being 666 (or 666.0 if you want to be picky, and the computer did). Lampshaded by the kid stopping it when he figures it out."Twelve times 55.5 is... Really?"
- Papa Wolf: Dr. Cooper, Marshall Hogan. Nate Springfield of The Veritas Project is one as well, but doesn't get the same opportunity to show it.
- Town with a Dark Secret: Hyde River in The Oath. The residents are unfriendly, "town father" Harold Bly publicly beats his wife with impunity, and it has the highest rate of bear assaults per capita in the region. The bears aren't responsible for all those deaths.
- Trauma Conga Line
- Would Hurt a Child: Lila and Jay Cooper are thirteen and fourteen. Elijah and Elisha Springfield of the Veritas Project are sixteen. None of the villains they face have the slightest hesitation about endangering their lives.
