Cloak of the Light // Wars of the Realm #1

[The man] was large and looked like a character straight out of an apocalyptic movie, complete with a long, dark coat, tight leather gloves, and sharp facial features. His face was fierce and his eyes were dark gray, almost black. If this was an alien…
He wasn’t friendly.

Cloak of the Light by Chuck Black is a Christian thriller that highlights the existence of spiritual warfare. Full of action and truth, it’s a gripping read for the YA audience.

Plot

Drew is caught in a world of light – just inches away from the dark
What if…there was a world beyond our vision, a world just fingertips beyond our reach? What if…our world wasn’t beyond their influence?
Tragedy and heartache seem to be waiting for Drew Carter at every turn, but college offers Drew a chance to start over—until an accident during a physics experiment leaves him blind and his genius friend, Benjamin Berg, missing.
As his sight miraculously returns, Drew discovers that the accident has heightened his neuron activity, giving him skills and sight beyond the normal man. When he begins to observe fierce invaders that no one else can see, he questions his own sanity, and so do others. But is he insane or do the invaders truly exist?
With help from Sydney Carlyle, a mysterious and elusive girl who offers encouragement through her faith, Drew searches for his missing friend, Ben, who seems to hold the key to unlocking this mystery. As the dark invaders close in, will he find the truth in time?

Cloak of the Light is gripping almost the entire way through. It’s packed with suspense and conflict, between sword fights, shootouts, and epic clashes between angels and demons. It kept my attention.

However, the opening dragged, in my opinion. Instead of jumping into the action, the author takes the first seven chapters to give Drew’s entire backstory. By itself, the scenes are well-written and interesting enough. But most of them have little plot relevance. It isn’t until chapter eight we get any hint of the primary conflict. I think the author could have tightened the beginning a bit, giving his backstory through dialogue with present-day characters, rather than taking a leisurely trip through time.

Characters

I enjoyed how Black portrayed the atheist protagonist. It would have been easy to make him convert to Christianity in the book, but even after hearing the gospel and hearing spiritual things from Sydney (his Christian love interest), he’s stubborn in his ways. He isn’t merely a facade to push a certain worldview, but a real, deep character.

I didn’t particularly enjoy his relationship with Sydney. Readers of this blog will know I am an adamant opponent of romantic subplots (and main plots). This one is entirely appropriate and even serves to drive the plot forward, but I had one key problem with it.

Sydney says she can’t love Drew if he isn’t a Christian, but she sure finds every way to contradict herself. They frequently brush hands and Sydney goes out of her way later in the book to be around Drew. Her struggle of emotions between her affection standards was interesting. But the constant physical contact seemed a bit much.

Ben was probably my favorite character. Such an intense book had little humor, but his typical genius aloofness was humorous to read.

Theme & Content Warnings

Black portrays the overlapping between the physical and spiritual realms, examining the strategy and methods of supernatural warfare, such as what weapons they use and why. He takes a methodical and logical approach to the invisible war, which I found highly interesting. Naturally, it’s all speculative, but the logic behind his decisions is compelling.

The book actually never states that the “invaders” are angels and demons. Because of Drew’s aversion to Christianity, he doesn’t in this book find out the truth. However, it’s clear to any Christian reader what’s going on.

The book has no real prominent message, but it is full of truth. At the end of the book, the author says his intention was to wake people up to the reality of the surrounding war. And that he certainly does. Also in the book is a simplified gospel explanation and moral role models. Even Drew, an unbeliever, demonstrates courage and endurance in the face of opposition.

No content warnings to speak of here. Even amid the constant presence of demons, gunfights, and inner-city gangs, the book doesn’t stray into questionable territory. Some fights get quite intense, such as a school shooting and battles with the aforementioned gang, but I have no problem recommending this to any teen readers.

Overall

Despite a slow opening, Cloak of the Light is a captivating book. I loved seeing the author’s speculation about how the supernatural realm interacts with our own. When he portrays a battle between humans mirroring a battle between angels and demons, it’s gripping to read.

If you enjoy thrillers or action stories, this book is for you. It’s clean, it’s good, and it’ll make you completely reconsider the world around you.

If you enjoyed this book, you might also like This Present Darkness by Frank Peretti.