Blast from the past

 Lightning was the first Dean R. Koontz book I ever read, and for that reason alone, it has a place on my shelf. it lead me to bonding with my 8th Grade reading teacher, who I adored, and lead down the path to other authors in similar genres. I could have sworn I had reviewed it on here, but NaBrO. 

Anyway, the book opens with a OB/GYN being held at gunpoint by a blond man with a gun. Said man keeps a doctor from delivering a baby. Said baby is Laura Shane, whom the Blond visits occasionally throughout her childhood, never aging. We also see a man pursuing the blond, named Kokoshka, who wants to kill Laura once he figures out why Stefan, the blond, is meddling with her life. We see Laura grow up and become orphaned at 11, move in to an orphanage, only to be nearly molested by a custodian. We meet her friends, the twins Ruthie and Thelma, and the occasional roommate Tammy, who tries to commit suicide a few times.  

Ruthie ends up dying trying to save Tammy when Tammy lights herself and the orphanage on fire. 

Laura goes to college, meets her husband Danny, becomes a successful novelist, has a kid named Christopher. 

Then comes a fateful day when her Guardian appears again, this time saving her from a truck crash. Which is all great, until Kokoshka shows up and tries to kill everyone. Danny winds up dead, Stefan vanishes with his beacon. Laura gets a year to prepare, during which she becomes a marksman with a rather large arsenal of weaponry. (In the late 80's, Koontz was always obsessed with weapons and technology, and half the time speaking either for or against both.) Anyway, Stefan comes back after being shit, along with several pursuers. Which leads to Laura, Stefan, and Chris going on the lam. We finally find out where (or more precisely WHEN) Stefan is from, and the rest of the book concerns destroying The Institute in the era it exists in. 

While it is a bit dated, and really silly in a few places, not to mention the slobbery kiss to Reaganomics at the very end, it's still a good yarn a few decades on,