Shine Your Light On Me: Lee Thompson
Reviewed By Steve Stred
- Print Length: 144 pages
- Publisher: Apex Publications (March 14, 2017)
“He told himself it was just the storm.”
Shine Your Light on Me opens with a massive bang and Lee Thompson throws us directly into the fire in this story. While sometimes this can backfire and make us wondering just what is going on, Thompson deftly blends the tale together and allows the story to unfold, filling in most of the back story as he goes.
Overall I had a fun time with this book, even when at points it felt a bit disjointed.
The story follows Aiden, his father Jack and the principal’s son Bobby. We get dropped into Jack’s bar, just as a massive winter storm is about to hit the small town. We are introduced to a few characters, find out about the horrific reason Jack is in a wheelchair and then BAM! Thompson has Aiden explode with a paranormal/religious light burst that allows him to heal people of their ailments but ultimately strips him of his ability to talk.
The story then crisscrosses between the rifts that develop related to Jack’s condition and Bobby, who has had enough of life and has decided to blow up the high school.
Personally, the entire Bobby storyline was here nor there. I didn’t feel it added anything to the narrative and if it was completely removed I don’t think the story would suffer or be affected by it in the least.
There are some twists and turns as the story goes along, but with such a short page count nothing gets too fleshed out. Some aspects really benefitted by this and some suffered.
As the story moves along, the writing becomes vaguer and at times I had to re-read large sections to try and fully understand just what was going on. The climactic scenes (which there were a few of) all ultimately felt discarded and lost their emotional punch for me.
At the end of the day – I liked this story, I just didn’t love it. If there was another 50-100 pages for fleshing out, I would probably have loved it even more, but the writing style flows and I can see why this book gets the love that it does.
Shine Your Light On Me
Aiden LeDoux is a typical sixteen-year-old boy when the O’Connell brothers nail his father to a tree. He doesn’t believe things can get any worse…until three months later, when a mysterious light bursts forth from his face and heals everyone in his father’s bar, from minor scrape to terminal illness.
Once word of this miracle event spreads, crazed townspeople attempt to force Aiden to use his newfound gift to heal those they love. But Aiden doesn’t know how he did it. Or why. Or if he can ever make it happen again.
In the heart of a blizzard, in the throes of fanatical entitlement, the townspeople begin to tear the town–and each other–apart, with Aiden and his family trapped in the middle…
Shine Your Light on Me is a gripping tale that illuminates the ugly underbelly of humanity. From its tense opening to its explosive finale, the monsters herein are all too real, too familiar, and Lee Thompson’s relentless prose will leave you breathless.
You can buy Shine Your Light On Me from Amazon UK & Amazon US
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Steve Stred
Steve Stred writes dark, bleak horror fiction.
Steve is the author of the novels Invisible & The Stranger, the novellas The Girl Who Hid in the Trees, Wagon Buddy, Yuri and Jane: the 816 Chronicles and two collections of short stories; Frostbitten: 12 Hymns of Misery and Left Hand Path: 13 More Tales of Black Magick, and the dark poetry collection Dim the Sun.
On September 1st, 2019 his second collection of dark poetry and drabbles called The Night Crawls In will arrive. This release was specifically created to help fund the 1st Annual LOHF Writers Grant.
Steve is also a voracious reader, reviewing everything he reads and submitting the majority of his reviews to be featured on Kendall Reviews.
Steve Stred is based in Edmonton, AB, Canada and lives with his wife, his son and their dog OJ.
You can follow Steve on Twitter @stevestred
You can visit Steve’s Official website here
Hmmm, I like the idea for this one. Have to think about it some more.