Astral Cuts

by John Notlad

Flint Hainsen is a young, ordinary man still living at home with his mom. That is, until the evening he discovers her lifeless body on the living room floor.

Grief-stricken, Flint quickly falls into the hands of an otherworldly gentleman by the name of John. The enigmatic, old cowboy claims to be a friend of his late mother. He offers answers surrounding her death and a plot of revenge. However, Flint soon finds that John's motives are far more sinister than he let on and the answers he provides only lead Flint deeper down the rabbit-hole between this reality and another.

From the other side of that rabbit-hole emerges Nelson Germander III. He was a friend of Flint's from childhood, an imaginary one. He has returned to the physical world with a warning: John is a demon from the Astral Realm, and he must be stopped.

Armed with Kashvi, a portal opening dagger, the two old friends descend through the layers of reality in search of John. They are confronted with the monsters that lurk in the shadows, and their minds. Along the way, Flint's troubled past rears its head and the sinful connection that binds he and his mother to the astral visitors becomes all too clear.

ebook

Published March 15, 2021

About the author

Weaving metaphysical tales of dreams, death, and the unknown, this East Texas native finds inspiration in the piney woods, where he wanders in search of mushrooms and muses. His stories explore the mysteries lurking between consciousness and oblivion, drawing readers into realms where reality and the ethereal intertwine.

Reviews

[Emmy · Rating 3 out of 5]

[ARC Reader Review]

Full disclosure: the genre I read most in is usually fantasy. That having said, Astral Cuts was a perfect way for me to get introduced into the paranormal genre. John did a great job getting me excited for it and I can see how readers from multiple genres would enjoy reading this book.

With a very strong plot, good starting motivations for the characters, fast pacing and a truly surprising plot twist, Astral Cuts had me leafing through the pages from front to back in three sittings. It is action packed, raw and definitely evokes some 'feels' especially as you get a little more towards the climactic moments.

Although a few questions and moments of confusion remained, over all I enjoyed the creative worldbuilding done with the astral realm. John Notlad cannot be accused of falling into the trap of info-dumping. Any of the worldbuilding mentioned really does matter to the story and is on point. Something I can appreciate.

So if I enjoyed the book, why not four stars?
I genuinely deliberated over my choice of stars for this review. The reason I eventually felt that three stars was best fitting my experience can be summarized in two points.
- One was that there were just a few scenes that almost seemed too fast paced to me because they confused me. At several moments I really would have liked for the story to slow down for a moment and provide a little bit more explanation of what was actually happening or why.
- The main point however was that I missed a bit of character depth. Let me explain.
Although the story starts of in a way that made it easy for me to connect and emphasize with Flint, the main character, throughout the story I felt like that connection was slipping. I'm not saying that a story needs to contain a lot of naval gazing. Definitely not. But personally I prefer a story to be character-driven, vs plot-driven and in this case I often found myself a little frustrated because the main character didn't express a lot of what he was thinking or feeling. That made him feel a little bland at times and pushed around by his circumstances. I found myself feeling more connected to Nelson than I did to Flint himself. Due to this I didn't fully experience his positive character arc as intensely and it made the ending feel just a little abrupt. Which was disappointing because I think the story itself was great.

Sexual content: mild. Except for one quite jarring scene, any other intimate moments between characters are mostly off screen.
Coarse language: mild.
Violence and gore: moderate.
Trigger warning: suicide

To summarize I can say that I had a good time reading Astral Cuts and I can recommend it to anyone who likes a plot with a good amount of depth, action and fast pacing.
Thanks to John Notlad for giving me the opportunity for a good read.

[Katharina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Astral Cuts by John Notlad is about Flint, who lost his mother to drugs. He meets John, who claims to know Flints mother and convinces him to take revenge for her death. Things escalate and fortunately Flints "imaginary" childhood friend appears again and saves him from any more damage. He explains that John is a demon and that the Astral Realm exists and takes him there. Together they try to stop John once and for all.

All in all this book is a nice read, with interesting characters and a good plot. I really liked the concept and the idea of traveling between the realms through cuts into walls and how the realms are pictured. But I had the feeling that the pace was a little unbalanced. Sometimes we rushed through the story and it was hard to tag along and at other times it was slow and nearly boring. But all in all it was a good book with an interesting story.

[Mathew Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

A knife that cuts a portal in the reality and lets you travel across realms, hug. Interesting. That was my first thought when I started reading and I have to say the author didn't let me down. We know revenge blinds you. But what will you do when different people gives you different truths. Who will you believe? Do you want to go down the road of darkness?
Monsters that travel through realms and portals, fight between the darkness and light, thirst for revenge, people that can manipulate the reality... you get the point.
What I liked about the book? I guess it's the idea of realms and realities, and a portal that let's you pass through them. It's kinda cool. I liked it and I'm sure you will too.

[Emily Pennington · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flint Hainsen is a young, ordinary man who lives with his mom, until someone murders her. A man named John says he is a friend of his late mother and plots revenge for Flint. Fortunately, or at least it feels fortunate at the time, an “imaginary” childhood friend, Nelson Germander III, appears to him to warn him that John is a demon from the Astral Realm, and he must be stopped at all costs!

The two of them descend by a portal through the layers of reality to find John. Monsters surround them and things begin to become clear. They will have to battle John. But can they win? Can they save Abbey?

[Kristin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astral Cuts is such an amazing book that held my attention the entire time. The story goes along smoothly from beginning to end. The characters are perfectly described. The events that Flint go through are written to make you feel like you are right there.

I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review.

[Adalynd · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some parts were slow but I enjoyed the story overall. Slow parts don't turn me away. Interesting characters. Worth the read.

[T.G.P. T.G.P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book the last year, I like books about this subject so I really enjoyed it.

[Nick Bouchard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Astral Cuts is a solid 3.5 stars. I rounded up because it was a fun read. This is not a genre I’ve engaged with before. It reads like a truncated fantasy epic with some supernatural horror sprinkled in.

This is something I never say: Astral Cuts would benefit from being longer. My copy was about 250 pages. I think there’s twice that worth of story in there. Time after time, I was left wanting more detail. That isn’t to say the story lacks detail. There’s a great deal of lovely detail. But - as an example - there is a whole parallel series of worlds that were comprehensible and cinematically visible whose denizens and physics could have been really dug into.

As i felt the remaining pages diminishing in my hand, I kept thinking Astral Cuts must be part of a planned trilogy, there’s no way to wrap this up in so few pages. With a nice, unexpected twist, it wraps in a satisfying manner without the sequel-mandating cliffhanger. Though there’s plenty more to explore if Mr. Notlad wants to follow up Flint’s first adventures on the astral plane(s).

All in all this is a fun and suspenseful read. A lot of cool, imaginative stuff I haven’t seen before comes into play and there’s a satisfying resolution to a story that strays far from its sad beginning before circling back around.

[Adalynd · Rating 4 out of 5]

INTERESTING STORY

Some parts were slow but I enjoyed the story overall. Slow parts don't turn me away. Interesting characters. Worth the read.