Lynette McClenaghan

I read both his short stories and novels. Stand out favourites are: The Shining and Pet Sematary. They are grim, intense and genuinely frightening, but also strike a chord with what it means to be human, decent and compassionate.
Reviews for other Stephen King reads can be found on my Amazon Profile Page.

Joyland – Reviewed on Amazon: 29 June 2013.
Joyland is a much simpler, compact story compared to the usual lengthy, sprawling King work. It works beautifully because of this. The focus on Devin’s experiences keeps the story moving at a rapid pace and the containment of the narrative to largely one place and a small group of characters harkens back to some of King’s earlier novellas. Joyland eschews horror for a more understated ghost story with some neat plot twists. It is also a coming of age story, a genre in which King excels, a thriller, romance and a murder mystery. Here King seems to have striven for the kind of thoughtful, reflective narrative that evokes a wonderful yet problematic time in a man’s life that we saw in `The Body’. I like King’s work in this mode; his characterisation is so wonderfully constructed and explored. The `carny’ world is also powerfully created – both familiar and strange. Joyland is as good as anything King has done in recent years.