Doctor Sleep by Stephen King

Nothing could ever take away the trauma of watching your own father slip into the depths of madness before being taken by death. But when that horror is joined by some real-life ghosts bent on terror, the effects can have a lasting impression.

For Danny Torrance, the events at the Overlook Hotel never left, still playing out in his mind as he traverses the roads of America. With the ghosts from the past still searching for him, Danny slips into the alcoholic safety his father knew so well.

When a girl with the psychic ability known as the “Shining” begins to contact Danny, he learns of a horror that has been travelling the roads of America, torturing the children who posses the Shining. The True-Knot use the gift as a source of immortality, able to store the essence of “Shine” with which to feed their need to live forever.

But the girl they’ve chosen as their next source has her own protector, one who knows the evil only too well.

The Shining is, has and always will be one of my favourite books by Stephen King. It’s a ghost story, horror story and tragedy all in one. What makes this book just as good, in my opinion, is that you could read them both as one, the story following on from the original with the same depth, feel and terror that made the it so good.

The biggest fear with any sequel is that it’s just a blatant grab for money by feeding off the emotional attachment the reader had with the first. But this sequel is different, the author simply finishing a story that needed its proper ending.

This isn’t a sequel, as far as I’m concerned. It’s the continuation of Danny’s story, one that this time, truly ends in a way that actually left me teary-eyed.