Lightning

Dean Koontz

Average Rating 10/10 (2 Reviews)

A storm strikes on the night Laura Shane is born in 1955, and there is a strangeness about the weather that people will remember for years. As the dazzling blue-white jagged bolts of lightning split the heavens, a stranger materialises out of the raging blizzard to guard Laura from the not so tender mercies of a drunken doctor and ensure her safe passage into the world, before disappearing back into the night. Eight years later, Laura meets her mysterious saviour again, when he saves her from the perverted and deadly intentions of a drug-crazed robber.

Throughout her childhood, ever more terrifying troubles beset the young girl, but with increasing courage, she finds the strength to prevail - even without the intervention of the stranger.

In time she marries and has a son, while also finding success as a novelist. Gradually the memory of her strange guardian and the troubles of her youth dim in the light of her happiness. Until the lightning strikes once more and shatters her world.

This time the stranger has become the angel of death. As Laura flees with her young son, Chris, she knows she must prepare for the final confrontation that will come with the powerful forces that stalk her. The adventure - and the terror - has only just begun.

Review by Chrissi (010102) Rating (10/10) Star Book
Review by Nigel (010102) Rating (10/10) Star Book

Review by Chrissi
Rating 10/10
This is one of the very first books that Nigel and I realised that we had both read, way back in the dim and distant past of our relationship - and for that reason it holds a special place in both our hearts, and so, after reading it so many times that I have lost count, we thought it was time that we both tried to explain why we think it is worth a star rating.

Laura is a child at the start of the book, and we see her growing up. Her father runs a grocery store, and although her mother died giving birth to her, she is a happy child with a love of books and stories. During a robbery at her father's store, a man intervenes, taking control of the situation, rescuing her and her father. This is the first time that she meets her "secret guardian", who leaves her a letter after the death of her father, explaining that some things just happen, although she does not see him again for some years.

As an orphan, Laura spends some time with a foster family, and some time in the children's home where she meets her friends the Ackerson twins, but whilst in the home she becomes the target for a paedophile, nicknamed "the eel", and this is to have tragic consequences.

It is not all doom and gloom though, in fact this is not the main aspect of the story. Laura grows up with the ambition of being a writer, and in between getting married and having a son becomes a well-known writer. So where is the mystery, then?

I will go no further here, as it may give the game away, but the story absolutely rips along, you will like Laura and her friends, and family, and you want to know what happens, but there is then a fabulous twist that you will never have guessed, and if you really get it right, you really should give yourself a pat on the back - I certainly did not get it 100% right, and I don't think that Nigel did first time around, but it really does not matter, it is just a brilliant read.
Chrissi (1st January 2002)

Review by Nigel
Rating 10/10
Two books that stick in my memory by Dean Koontz are Lightning and Watchers. Watchers for the amazing way Dean Koontz builds the tension at the beginning of the book when being 'chased' through the woods and Lightning for the fantastic plot with its twists and turns.

This is one of those novels that needs to be read with as little knowledge of the plot as possible, which in truth makes it difficult to review! In fact trust us, don't read any of this, just get the novel and be prepared to be blown away.
Nigel (1st January 2002)