Lightpoints by Peter Kassan

By: Anonymous on Friday, June 28, 2013

Title: Lightpoints

Author:  Peter Kassan

Published:  March 25th 2013 by Melange Books 

(first published March 24th 2013)

Page Count:  218

Genre:  Paranormal Suspense

Shelf:  Review Copy

Rating:  ★★

Synopsis from Goodreads:

What if you suddenly discovered you had a sense—and powers—that almost no one else in the world did?

When Amanda Lindner Nichols, a 24-year-old graphic artist living with her husband in Queens, New York, is revived from a near-death experience, she discovers she perceives everyone around her as points of light—but not with her eyes. She soon learns she can not only perceive the life energy of others, but she can give and take it. With the help of others like her, she brings her husband Chris to the brink of death and back to bestow on him the same remarkable faculty, and they’re the happiest they’ve been.

But not for long. All over the world, people who’ve been revived from their own near-death experience at just the right moment discover themselves with these same unusual powers. They find ways to use them—some for good and some for evil. When Amanda and Chris encounter a ruthless group of gangsters with the same faculty, tragedy follows—and Amanda faces the greatest challenge of her life.

My Review:

Kassan has an intricate yet clearly laid out writing style. There is a sense of urgency to the story, like everything should come to a head. From the very beginning I found myself wanting to figure out what would happen next and how everything connected. The author flips between the stories of many different characters with similar stories, and keeps the who’s who clear all the while. Unfortunately the different storylines don’t really intertwine. Even at the end when some of the stories begin to intertwine, the bulk of them remain completely separate.

The author has created a large cast of characters, each at varying points in their development. Very few of the characters have a solid background, but many are well developed in the present day. You get to know them on a certain level. There are many areas where the author begins to develop a notion regarding a certain character or couple, but doesn’t bring it to completion. Unfortunately the author spends time developing some characters that have very little to do with the main storyline. This time might have been better spent on further development of the main characters in the novel.

Overall, I really wanted to like this story. The concept was really trippy and the characters were memorable but there were just too many unrelated storylines that didn’t fully incorporate with the whole.

Buy your copy online here today!