Joyland by Stephen King

Available on Amazon

Rating (1-5) 📘📘
Genre - Ghost Fiction, Horror Anthologies
Format - Paperback
Length - 288 Pages


*Amazon Blurb*

Set in a small-town North Carolina amusement park in 1973, Joyland tells the story of the summer in which college student Devin Jones comes to work as a carny and confronts the legacy of a vicious murder, the fate of a dying child, and the ways both will change his life forever.

*My Review* 

If this was a movie, I bet there would have been that cheesy music like they play in movies like Friday The 13th. I thought this book was very cheesy.
Devin takes a job at an amusement park where he learns that a woman was murdered years before. He also befriends a woman and her sick son who live nearby. Devin becomes slightly obsessed by the woman's murder and is hoping to be able to catch a glimpse of her ghost that so many others have claimed to have seen.

It seems like the last few books that I've read by Stephen King haven't been good and he use to be my favorite author. Either I'm picking up his worst books, or I've read so many other good books and his writing just isn't reaching my expectations. (Wow, that's harsh.)
I'm curious, who else reads Stephen King? What are some of your favorites? What ones didn't you care for?

The Book of Witness, Omnibus Edition by Erick Mertz

Available on Amazon

Rating (1-5) 📘📘📘📘
Genre - Mystery Anthologies, Horror Anthologies, Horror Short Stories
Format -E-book
Length -  5645 KB


*Amazon Blurb*

Some of these stores are true. Others, however, are not.
Deciding truth from fiction is up to you.
A collection of paranormal mysteries that will keep you up long into the night.

Canyon County, Oregon is a place unlike any other. For as long as people have lived amongst the creek beds, tree-covered hills and deep shadowy hollers they have encountered strange phenomenon.

The Book Of Witness is a treasure trove containing thirteen peculiar paranormal mystery stories. This book will introduce you to just a few Canyon County residents touched by its cold finger.

A God-fearing Christian with wild hallucinations.
An unrepentant conman who got into business with a frightening shape shifter.
The wounded Vietnam veteran who watched his friends mercifully released from their mortal pain.
A rural mail carrier who got a little too curious.

Though all of these people come from different eras and walks of life, they have one thing in common. Their lives have been touched by unexplainable encounters with the paranormal.

And they want to tell you about it.

What is out there? Nobody knows for sure.

According to legend, it is an evil as old as the mountains.

*My Review* 

This is a quick and easy read. The short stories are very short, but have everything a story needs to make it feel "complete".

I loved how this book brings a bunch of short stories together through location. All the characters experience a different type of phenomenon, but all in Canyon County. Some had a small encounter with the unexplained, while others were much more involved. It reminded me of the Twilight Zone.