The Devil's Prayer by Luke Gacias

Description from Goodreads:

"A nun commits suicide in front of thousands in Spain. In Australia, Siobhan Russo recognises that nun as her mother, Denise Russo, who disappeared six years ago.

In search of answers, Siobhan travels to the isolated convent where her mother once lived. Here she discovers Denise’s final confession, a book that details a heinous betrayal that left her crippled and mute, and Denise’s subsequent deal with the Devil to take revenge. In the desperate bargain Denise made with the Prince of Darkness, she wagered Siobhan’s soul.

As Siobhan discovers the fate of her soul, she learns that hidden within the pages of her mother’s confession is part of The Devil’s Prayer, an ancient text with the power to unleash apocalyptic horrors.

And now her mother’s enemies know Siobhan has it.

Can Siobhan escape an order of extremist monks determined to get the Prayer back? Can she save the world from its own destruction?

Explicit Content Warning: "The Devil’s Prayer" is a historical horror thriller that contains brutality, rape, sex, drug abuse and murder. Readers may find its content offensive and confronting."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

First of all I want to say thank you to the author and NetGalley for my copy in exchange for an honest review.

Secondly, I want to apologise to the author because I just didn’t like it. I found it boring, boring, boring with way too much information that didn’t add anything at all. It was hard to read, it felt awkward and didn’t flow. I can overlook this a little if the story is engaging but, for me, this just wasn’t and I ended up skipping large amounts of the historical information (I tried to get into it, really I did) and finished (yes, I did manage to) rolling my eyes. If it had been a real, physical book (I was reading an e-copy), there is no doubt in my mind that I would have thrown it across the room and then promptly into the bin.  Again, I apologise to the author because I know it must have taken ages to write this book and you will have put your heart and soul into it but you can't please everyone.

I don’t know what else to say to be honest, I don’t want to go into everything I didn’t like about it but let's just say it was the majority of it but once again, if other reviews are anything to go by, I am in the minority so please don't take my word for it - it was actually shortlisted for the Australian Shadow Award - Best Australian Horror Novel of 2016 - maybe I missed something????  Anyway, if you enjoy historical/religious/paranormal/horror books and you don't mind getting a bit confused by the writing style or enjoy being overloaded with information, then give this a go.