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I love Stephen King. He is, to me, a master of small town American horror and I attribute some of my very first ‘scares’ to his movies and books. Reading under the covers by torchlight, or daring friends to peek out from behind the sofa at movie sleepovers, movies like IT, Pet Sematary and books like Christine gave me sleepless nights for days.

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The Bazaar of Bad Dreams is a collection of stories speckled with notes and explanations of how they came about and Stephen’s inspiration for them. Some are really quite dark and stories like Bad Little Kid and Mile 81 clung to me in the darkness as I tried to drift off to sleep. Others didn’t quite hit the mark; they were over before they had begun and some didn’t have that trademark King apprehension and build up which left me skipping onto the next story.

The benefit of this rather large book is that the stories are quite short and you can dip in and out as and when you feel like a bit of a fright. A mixed collection which should be on the shelf of any Stephen King fan, even if its just for the insight into how he finds his inspiration and creates a story.

Solid 3 stars out of 5 from me. Not my favourite King, but The Bazaar of Bad Dreams still has that glimmer of clever horror.

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