Inspirational Science Fiction

Seventeen-year-old Emma Garson is Lucas Walker’s devoted girlfriend. She expects their relationship to blossom into a life-long commitment with a picket fence and plenty of kids. Then, months before Lucas’ high school graduation, he is diagnosed with terminal cancer. When the boy finally becomes a shell of his former self—high school football star and most apt to succeed—his family finally accepts the inevitable.

But not Emma. She prays for a miracle, and when death is at Luca’s front door, she seeks magic from the local witch, Mrs. Kokesh. With the witch’s formula in hand, Emma places the mixture as directed—on his eyes and lips and seals it with a kiss.

That’s when Emma hears a noise outside Lucas’ farmhouse home. She soon uncovers an alien empty pod that once held the essence of its host. It seemed that the mother ship was destroyed and one alien survived. However, he needed a host body to exist until rescued by his friends.

That host became Lucas. Scout had no trouble healing Lucas’ cancer, the hard part was learning his language, primitive culture, and adapt to the boy’s behavior patterns. 

Karen McQuestion writes a superb science fiction inspirational love story, From a Distant Star. Most of the novel is in the first person narrative as Emma relates her experience with the alien Scout who rescued her boyfriend’s body from cancer. Occasionally, the author provides Scout’s unique perspective in the third person. This crossover technique works well throughout the book.

From a Distant Star provides readers on this lonely third rock from the sun that life truly exists on other worlds—benevolent life with good hearts and kind souls.

McQuestion’s novel is filled with the good and sprinkled with evil including a few nefarious characters that keep the plot humming through unexpected twists and turns. But in its climax we are promised hope—a motivation to read other works by this talented author.

About the Author

Karen McQuestion writes books for readers of all ages, but has a special love for YA fiction. The writer has been covered in such media as The Wall Street Journal, Entertainment Weekly, and on NPR’s The Story with Dick Gordon. McQuestion lives with her husband and children in Hartland, Wisconsin.

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