Book Summary and Reviews of Salem's Lot by Stephen King

Salem's Lot by Stephen King

Salem's Lot

by Stephen King

  • Readers' Rating (8):
  • Published:
  • Apr 1990, 464 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Ben Mears has returned to Jerusalem's Lot in hopes that exploring the history of the Marsten House, an old mansion long the subject of rumor and speculation, will help him cast out his personal devils and provide inspiration for his new book.

When two young boys venture into the woods, and only one returns alive, Mears begins to realize that something sinister is at work. In fact, his hometown is under siege from forces of darkness far beyond his imagination. And only he, with a small group of allies, can hope to contain the evil that is growing within the borders of this small New England town.

With this, his second novel, Stephen King established himself as an indisputable master of American horror, able to transform the old conceits of the genre into something fresh and all the more frightening for taking place in a familiar, idyllic locale.

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It’s Halloween week! What’s your favorite scary novel?
...e past; Exorcist, Dracula, Exorcist, Amityville Horror, Rosemary's Baby. I definitely don't have a favorite, but the book that scared me the most was Salem's Lot by Stephen King.
-Lana_Maskus


Has a book ever given you nightmares?
Salem's Lot, by Stephen King, scared the bejeebies out of me, and I had nightmares. I kept seeing vampires. I was a teenager at the time.
-Susan_C1

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"A super exorcism...tremendous." —Kirkus Reviews

"A master storyteller." —The Los Angeles Times

"[The] most wonderfully gruesome man on the planet." —USA Today

This information about Salem's Lot was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

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Author Information

Stephen King

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and an AT&T Audience Network original television series). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, and Doctor Sleep are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

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