 |
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
 Lisey's Story by Stephen King. World Fantasy Award nominee
(Brought to you by kat impatientreader.com) In the sweltering Maine summer, Lisey sorts through her dead husband's boxes of unpublished papers. She is a shrewd, 50 year-old Yankee, the youngest of four squabbling sisters. He was Scott Landon, a writer of critical and popular fame who acquired over his colorful career a National Book Award, obsessed fans, and millions of dollars. Two years ago, he died of a mysterious lung ailment; now Lisey feels ready to face sorting through his stuff. But his fans can be impatient. A snotty professor phones her with an imperious request for Scott's papers; he wants to assemble the definitive "Scott Landon" collection. Lisey puts him off because she has bigger worries: her difficult sister Amanda is heading towards a complete psychotic break with reality. The three younger sisters scramble to work up a plan for Amanda. Should they care for her at home? Have her committed? They bicker and fret while trying to do right for her. Then Lisey experiences an electrifying instant of communication from Scott through a seemingly possessed Amanda. It's only a few cryptic words. But it implies that Lisey is in danger, and Scott has laid out some clues with which to lead her to a mysterious source of help. Good thing because a psycho creep begins stalking Lisey and leaving her threatening messages about Scott's papers. Furious, she calls up the professor and demands to know if this thug is working for him. The chilling truth comes out: the psycho stalker never really was under the control of the frightened professor who swears he only talked to the guy once in a bar. So the stalker is an obsessed fan only using the papers as an excuse to terrorize Lisey. But Scott's helpful clues start multiplying, pointing a trail back to his own horrific childhood and a parallel world of unimaginable strangeness into which he could retreat to survive. This is what Scott always called the Booya Moon: a repository of humanity's collective unconscious that goes by many different names to the insane and the creative who seek its healing waters. Much of Scott's vivid writing talent comes from what he has witnessed in the Booya Moon. Lisey begins to catch glimpses of this parallel world: its sinister purple twilight, its lush scents of jungle flowers and night-blooming cereus, its strange props such as a grave, a hypodermic needle, and a bell brought there from our world by younger Scott. Worst of all is the "long boy", a chilling and alien entity of unimaginable horror that has been stalking Scott his entire life. As the stalker's threats grow worse, Lisey searches for the entry to the Booya Moon, which promises an escape for her, a trap for her stalker, and way of understanding her strange if loving husband once and for all. A former waitress, she still has the sort of practical, skeptical working-class mindset that makes magical travel a near-impossibility. But her vividly troubled sister Amanda provides some unexpected help ... This book is not without its faults. No one with as much money as Lisey is going to be that vulnerable to a stalker. However, if you can ignore this particular contrivance, you've got an engrossing and often terrifying story.Lisey's Story is available on Amazon through this link:
|
||||||||
|
Noteworthy Links: Wonderquest - Science Q/A! The Connection - Tech blog! Author site - John the Eunuch Historical Mystery series, Cozy Mystery List for all your cozy mystery needs, Obsidian Bookshelf - reviews of gay-themed fiction. |
||||||||
|
|
 |
|
|
||||
