This is my second read of this book, the first being when it came out in 1998. Upstairs in my parents house, reading at night, scaring the bejeezus out of myself in the dark. My second read is me in my home, with tears in my eyes, seeing the love story for what it is. This is not just a ghost story, it's a haunted love story. Age apparently brings wisdom.
I started reading this again in anticipation of the TV movie with Pierce Bronsan. I had a few hundred pages left to read tonight and decided to read a chapter or so once I got home from work. Which turned into me grabbing another mug of hot tea and reading some more. Which turned into me curling up under a blanket and forgetting I had homework and laundry to do. Which turned into....well, hello night time, where did you come from?? But I finished it. And laundry be damned.
Mike and Jo Noonan are a couple in love when Jo dies rather abruptly in the beginning of this book. Running across a parking lot towards an accident, an undiagnosed aneurysm bursts. We follow Mike through his grief, through his writer's block (he's V.C. Andrews with a prick) and back to his cabin at Dark Score Lake, Sara Laughs.
Sara Tidwell was a traveling musician who played at Dark Score back in the early 1900s. Untimely deaths were the rage then and the ghost of Sara continues her revenge on the residents of Dark Score.
Mike meets up with Mattie, a young widowed mother, and Kyra, her cute 3 year old daughter. And from there, we just spiral into a world of centuries of murder and ghostly vengeance.
I believe this is truly one of King's best novels. I don't say that lightly, as I rank several of his books among my top favorites. But this, this is a work of art.
