I can't easily come up with a more pallid place than Florida. At least I've always thought of it (like King expresses in this book) as a place of newlyweds and half dead. And maybe Hemingway lookalikes (I know, it may be a stereotype, but all states have their own I guess). Somehow King makes this calming sunny paradise into a less calming one with his own convincing style. Through Edgar Freemantle he explores the consequences of a serious accident: how difficult the recovery process is, but how it's still possible with determination and the support of loved ones.

I liked the oppressive feeling. That state which doesn't stem from the temperature, but from the feeling that someone's watching and manipulating you. In that state the breeze of wind coming from the ocean doesn't feel refreshingly, cool but brings with it the smell of the dead. The characters are nice and down-to-earth, and I liked the theme of art and creativity because of its former familiarity in my life. I once again started to think whether I should dig up my pencils and papers and start scribbling. And starve myself, because I forget to eat in the midst of the burst of creativity.

Although overall this is good King quality, the story involuntarily seems a bit prolonged. I can't tell whether the balance would be restored by cutting some of the stuff out, but around the middle part I started to experience a slight stagnation both in the story itself and in character development. Nevertheless, it was a real delight to get a King book in my hands once again and disappear into that world for a while. It's amazing how someone has such storytelling skills, that I had to read the last 200 pages or so obsessively and feverishly on one sitting, because I couldn't wait till the next day to see how it will all turn out. Actual horror elements didn't get their place in the spotlight properly until the latter half, but King really let himself go in that part, so it was worth the wait. How the hell twins can be so scary? Don't get it.