Why has it been so long since your last Book Club of the Damned?

Late-stage Heinlein really damaged me.

What's your pick this time?
Isolation, a novel by Travis Thrasher.

What's it about?
It's a Christian horror novel that rips off The Shining.

Seriously?
Here's the back cover:

"James Miller is a burned-out missionary whose time on the mission field in Papua New Guinea left him exhausted and disillusioned. His wife, Stephanie, feels like she's losing her mind. After moving to North Carolina, Stephanie begins seeing strange and frightening things: blood dripping down the walls, one of her children suffocating...
...Nine-year-old Zachary sees his family's move as an adventure, and as he explores the new house, he discovers every young boy's dream: secret passageways and hidden rooms. But what seems exciting at first quickly becomes horrifying.
When a snowstorm traps the Millers, the supernatural dangers of their new home will test everything they thought they knew about each other, and about their faith.

Wow. How far in are you?
I'm about halfway done.

What's happened so far?
Well, the family has moved into a big scary house. And there's an intimation of something evil going on in the household. And the mother has just remembered that her parents were Satanists.

How Satanic were they?
They were so Satanic that they bathed their daughter in a bathtub full of blood!

That's pretty Satanic. Are there really heavy Christian overtones?
Is the Pope Catholic? When I heard about a Christian version of The Shining, I thought it was going to be like this:

But really, it's just a crappy horror novel: "This wasn't a dream or a nightmare. It was a real memory, and she was replaying it like a scene selection from a DVD. It was the movie ofher life, and she hadn't selected this scene or even thought of it for some time." with occasional Christianisms thrown in: "If God is interested in me, then He knows I'm angry and why I'm angry, and if He doesn't want to talk with me, then don't want to talk to Him."

What's the Christianiest part of it all?
Well, the building where the family is staying has a north wing that's locked up. And the father is tempted to go inside of the locked up north wing, even though he isn't supposed to. And then he goes into a locked room in the locked wing and he finds...eeeevilness:

"He entered the library and locked the door behind him. Inside were a leather couch and love seat surrounded by bookshelves. The collection of books had been the first thign he noticed. Bizarre books and titles of all sorts. Books on religions and symbols and hunting and languages and art and photography and everything in between. There were books on sex, how-to guides and art books that might as well have been pornography. And then there was a large selection of hardbound books—Playboy and Penthouse and other magazine collections displayed like literature.
This was where Jim had come the other night, first flipping through the books on the occult and Eastern religions and then coming across these magazines.
He had glanced. That was all.
But the images and content stuck with him. It bothered him. It tugged at him and offered temptation."

And so what does he do? He goes in with a garbage bag and throws all the books that don't belong to him (and which, I'll remind you, are behind at least two locked doors in a forbidden place) away. That's a good Christian.

Are you going to read the rest of it?
Yes. I'm curious to see how the ending of the book goes. Does God come down and beat the devil up? I hope so. We'll have to see.

When will you finish this Book Club of the Damned?
Next Monday, the 5th.