FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Date:               March 27, 2006

Contact:         Caroline Craddock      

                        (615) 902-2704 office
                        ccraddock@thomasnelson.com

                   Jana Muntsinger

                     MMPR, 804-754-2118

                        jana@mmpublicrelations.com

 

 

Frank Peretti & Ted Dekker Pen First Novel Together

House is Supernatural Allegory for Human Heart

 

(NASHVILLE, TN) Two of the best-known authors within the spiritual thriller genre, Frank Peretti and Ted Dekker, have joined forces to craft a new novel entitled House (WestBow Press, hardcover, April 10, 2006).  Tight narration, jump-off-the-page descriptions and mind-blowing supernatural elements will thrill readers as they are step into a haunted house that reveals the true heart of all who enter.

House opens with a couple speeding down a rural Alabama highway, late for a last-ditch-effort marriage counseling appointment.  Bad directions and a booby-trapped road lead the couple to an empty antebellum hotel where another couple has also been stranded.  The four characters quickly realize a killer has lured them to the house—his “House Rules” call for all of their deaths unless they willingly kill one.  They discover that the only way out is further in. Unknown and horrifying challenges await them as they begin a supernatural fight for survival.

How Peretti and Dekker came to partner on House is a story in itself.  Since they share the same publisher and movie producer, the men had become friends.  Says Dekker, “The first time I met Frank, I knew we were kindred spirits.  We both love stories and, to be honest, we are both kind of off-beat.”  Dekker thought he’d take a risk and ask Peretti to a write book with him, but he knew no ordinary idea would do.  “I had a story idea I had been kicking around in my head for a while. I thought Frank and I could have some real fun with it,” he explains.  Dekker approached Peretti with a simple, yet provocative premise: what if a haunted house could reflect the heart of everyone who entered it?  Peretti was intrigued and suggested Dekker write an initial treatment.  After one read of the initial outline, Peretti was in.

Frank Peretti single-handedly launched the Christian thriller genre in the late 1980’s with his unforgettable first novels, This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness.  Ted Dekker, part of a new generation of novelists, has

dared to combine his Christian worldview with an edgy, cinematic style.   Each author has extremely successful novels to his credit (including Peretti’s more recent novels, The Oath and Monster, and Dekker’s Blink, Thr3e, and Showdown), resulting in almost 14 million books sold between them.  Both men write books informed by their own beliefs, stories showing the struggle between good and evil, light and darkness. 

Allen Arnold, Publisher at WestBow Press, says the Peretti-Dekker collaboration is a landmark event: “House is a page-turning read that showcases the best of both novelists.  Readers are sure to be captured by the tale these masterful storytellers have crafted.”  Pat Curry of PAGES magazine agrees that House is noteworthy, saying the Peretti-Dekker collaboration “is as big of a deal as Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler getting together to co-author a spy novel.”

Frank Peretti is arguably the first sales superstar in spiritually-themed thrillers.  He burst onto the fiction scene in 1988 with the release of This Present Darkness.  Almost overnight, Frank Peretti went from working in a ski factory to the pages of People, TIME and Newsweek.  Despite his sales success and notoriety, Peretti and his high school sweetheart Barb live simply in the mountains of the Pacific Northwest.

Ted Dekker is the son of missionaries John and Helen Dekker, whose incredible story of life among headhunters in Indonesia has been recounted in several books.  Dekker grew up surrounded by the vivid colors of the jungle and a variety of cultures, each with its own interpretation of life and religion--resulting in a first-class education in human behavior. This early life experience, he believes, has provided the foundation of his writing.  Ted Dekker has 14 books to his credit, including the non-fiction work, The Slumber of Christianity. He lives in the mountains of Colorado with his wife LeeAnn and their four children.

 

Believing in the power of story, WestBow Press delivers entertaining, culturally-relevant stories told from a Christian worldview. From one of the world’s largest publishers comes the imprint that is changing the face of fiction.

WestBow Press – Enjoy the story.

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