Oracle by Thomas Olde Heuvelt Book Review

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 Oracle 

(Robert Grim #2)

By Thomas Olde Heuvelt 


Published Year: 2021

Page Count: 460 pages 

Medium Used: Oneplus Nord Ce6, Moon Reader 

Genre: Horror, Thriller, Supernatural, Gods and Sacrifices, Fantasy, Young Adult, 2026-read.

Rating : 3.85/5



I very near DnFed this book while reading the last 30 percent. I wish the author has written it a bit differently than the mundane fight between good and evil, played out through a clueless kid and an evil bureaucrat. And once we know what's gonna pan out, he makes it even more boring by dragging it. I wanted to bang my head to the floor to make the pace go fast so I  can wrap the book or get to some better stuff which might be interesting in the later chapters. This book has a great start and good going till the revelation of the mystery behind the events. Then its all predictable. 


A small kid becomes the Oracle for an old, crippled, cursed and long forgotten God who is trying to fight another evil God who wants to consume humanity with greed. But the mammoth God who is forgotten needs the kid to do something so that they prevent the deaths of so many. Its straight and simple. The story starts with the kid - Luca Wolf - and his friend Emma finding a magically appeared ship, which sank in the north sea in 1716, in the field of a small town in Katwijk, Netherland. After that many people exploratively enter the ship hatch and disappear without trace. The government is clueless and a secret organisation of Netherlands, November-6, enlists the help of Robert Grim who has dealt with the Black Rock Witch case in the past. The kid starts getting visions of some long gone tribal people worshipping a mammoth God some eight thousand years ago, and the ship carrying small pox afflicted people in 1716. I thought it was very impactful how the two incidents are connected and again to the current situation. Robert Grim figures it out and paves the way for the rest of the book but I wished for the presence of some insanity which the author has doled out in troves in book 1. I wanted creepiness and horror. All through, there is no horror. It is a slow build up of suspense. Still a worthy read. The author has a way of playing with the supernatural to make it dance to his tune and build up a craving for it in our minds. Its better to read this as a stand alone rather than compare with Hex and feel little disappointment. 


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