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Not sure when exactly I read this, may have been in the 90s or early 00s.

The novel is set in north America I think. Some kind of energy beams or rays from space rain down on Earth. Where they happen to hit a human, that person gains some kind of power. From what I remember the powers were not superhero-like, they may have been related to whatever the person was doing at the moment of being struck. There was a woman who was hit whilst.. erm, "in flagrante delicto" and gained a seductive power over men. There was an antagonist who was an old man that dies just as he is struck by the energy, he becomes a kind of undead and starts killing off others who have gained powers (including a scene where he kills a messiah-like character who is speaking to a crowd).

I can't remember if the book explained the origin of the space energy, I think the climax involved the remaining people with abilities facing off with undead guy in a forested area.

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  • Hmm. Some of the elements of this story remind me of Sanderson's The Reckoners, but the R-rated elements of the story definitely were not present in the YA trilogy.
    – Shokhet
    Commented Jun 20, 2017 at 22:45
  • @Shoket - there's plenty of stories with these elements - Rising Stars was the first to pop in my head, but that's a comic, not a novel. The character descriptions are the key bit.
    – Radhil
    Commented Jun 21, 2017 at 0:15

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Found it - I suddenly remembered the word "blue" being significant, which lead me to "Blue Light" by Walter Mosley.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Light_(novel)

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