The sleepy town of Jerusalem's Lot ('Salem's Lot if you're local), has never seen anything ominous or eerie come its way that is, until now. The majority of the population of Salem's Lot has seemingly vanished over the course of a few days, and the remaining (past) residents refuse to divulge too far into the speculation of what occurred there. The Lot became a ghost town overnight, with no explanation as to why...that is until we dive into the firsthand accounts of what took place leading up to the total annihilation of what used to be a close-knit community.

Ooh so in my quest to read King's works in order 'Salem's Lot was #2 on my list. I loved this book SO much! The storyline starts slow but, quickly picks up speed and moves along at an alarmingly fast pace, keeping the reader HEAVILY invested. Reading as the characters scrambled to gather themselves during the day and then tried to ensure protection throughout the nights made me exhausted for them...the fact that most of this took place over just 3 days is insane. Sometimes with King books I feel that there are so many characters it makes my head spin but, here in the Lot, that wasn't an issue for me at all. I loved each character and what they brought to the story, ESPECIALLY Mark, truly a little badass of a child. The narrative created around Ben and his late wife was so good and added an emotional depth to the story that wouldn't have been included otherwise. This portion of the book also made other deaths harder to swallow and feel more emotionally charged than I anticipated.

My only complaint is the little to no background we receive on Barlow and Straker. Yeah, I get it that's not *the point* but I would have enjoyed some more info on why they chose The Lot (Barlow mentioned Marsden a few times but I need the whole scoop), how EXACTLY was Hubie Marsden involved w/ the vamp community (???), and what came of the rest of the infected townspeople after Ben and Mark dipped. Some of the unnecessary detail (I mean what did I expect from King, truly) could have been swapped for that information IMO but, still a classic vamp read that I enjoyed big time.