Lisey's Story by Stephen King - mini classic horror review

A lot of criticism has been aimed at Stephen King over the last few years, chief of which being that he has, in recent years, become somewhat samey and unoriginal in his storytelling. This is a tad unfair when you consider that there are several British Horror authors who have been writing the same book for the past twenty years!

Lisey’s Story, his second release of 2006, tells an old and familiar tale in a rather refreshing and inventive way. The main story – that of Lisey’s marriage to her troubled novelist husband, Scott Landon, and his abrupt death – is told in a series of flashbacks, half-remembered memories and dream sequences, interwoven somewhat smoothly into the novel’s two subplots – that of the psychotic ‘Zack McCool’ and Lisey’s mentally unstable sister, Amanda. King’s strength has always been in creating believable characters, and here is no exception, written with all the depth, tenderness and seat-of-the-pants suspense that we’ve all come to expect over the last 32 years. The plot twists like a narrow mountain road as secrets are unearthed, and Lisey attempts to come to terms with her husband’s death and heal old wounds.

Not the classic King of the mid 70s – early 80s by any stretch of the imagination but a brilliantly written, powerful book nonetheless, and proves without a doubt that Mr King has a hell of a lot more mileage in him yet!