Light from Distant Stars: A Novel

Scrambled Reading Light From Distant Stars is a very hard to place novel, and if you're an impatient reader you likely won't be able to get very far into this one. It starts out swinging for the fences and seems to shape up as a run of the mill murder mystery, but the constant flash backs keep you guessing and hinting at something more underneath the story itself. As other reviewers have mentioned, the flash backs do slow the rate of story down, and I was at times wanting to skim over chapters to keep on going with the main plot. However the regular recollections add a lot of background and depth to the story and it's characters. The book is well written even clever and oddly left me nostalgic, but I wasn't blown away.

Light from Distant Stars by Shawn Smucker Light from Distant Stars is an interesting book that takes the reader on a journey through the life of Cohen Marah in a series of flashbacks of memory as he deals with a situation in his present-day life and ponders a question that is heavy upon his heart and soul. Can you kill someone without doing the deed? As we are taken through Cohen's life we get to understand him and his relationship with his father - a relationship that is hard to define as it is one that also includes that of employer/employee. After leaving his position as a pastor following a total breakup of the Marah family Cohen's father takes on the duties of a funeral home with the upper floor being his and Cohen's new home. The gruesomeness of his father's new profession leaves a permanent impression on Cohen especially when he walks in on an especially troubling scene. A scene which leads him to seek a short escape from this new life and brings him into a most unique friendship (of a sort) with two young people who are attempting to find and stop something that Cohen can't explain. He just knows that it is dark and evil. Cohen's memories are interspersed through the present as he and his sister Kaye struggle to come to terms with the loss of their father. And Cohen has the added guilt of his last conversation with his father weighing on him. If you want a twist of suspense in your reading Shawn Smucker definitely gives it in this book. I don't think there is as much speculatism in this book as his previous titles (The Day the Angels Fell and The Edge of Over There) but there is an underlining thread of it that is subtly present. Overall this is a good read. The family dynamics add something to the story and I can't really say I empathize with his parents in any way but I do like Cohen and Kaye. Those who like the writing of Frank Peretti, Ted Dekker, and Erin Healy will most likely enjoy this one. I was provided a complimentary copy of this book by the publisher with no expectations but that I offer my honest opinion - all thoughts expressed are my own.