"Waiting On" Wednesday - 11/22/63 by Stephen King

Don't forget to check out Week 4 of our Spring Celebration with interviews, reviews, reading recommendations, and one fantastic giveaway!

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"Waiting On" Wednesday spotlights upcoming releases that everyone's excited about (created by Jill at Breaking The Spine.)

The one book that I absolutely cannot wait to get my pretty little hands on this week is:

11/22/63 by Stephen King: On November 22, 1963, three shots rang out in Dallas, President Kennedy died, and the world changed. What if you could change it back? Stephen King’s heart-stoppingly dramatic new novel is about a man who travels back in time to prevent the JFK assassination—a thousand page tour de force. Jake Epping is a thirty-five-year-old high school English teacher in Lisbon Falls, Maine, who makes extra money teaching adults in the GED program. He receives an essay from one of the students—a gruesome, harrowing first person story about the night 50 years ago when Harry Dunning’s father came home and killed his mother, his sister, and his brother with a hammer. Harry escaped with a smashed leg, as evidenced by his crooked walk. Not much later, Jake’s friend Al, who runs the local diner, divulges a secret: his storeroom is a portal to 1958. He enlists Jake on an insane—and insanely possible—mission to try to prevent the Kennedy assassination. So begins Jake’s new life as George Amberson and his new world of Elvis and JFK, of big American cars and sock hops, of a troubled loner named Lee Harvey Oswald and a beautiful high school librarian named Sadie Dunhill, who becomes the love of Jake’s life—a life that transgresses all the normal rules of time.

Although the book was first announced last month, the cover was just revealed this week - and it's absolutely gorgeous (although you have to see the back cover to truly appreciate it).

Quite simply put, Stephen King IS the reason I read. Pet Semetary was the first adult novel I ever read (and remains one of my favourites), and it was his words of praise on the cover of the Books of Blood that first introduced me to the genius of Clive Barker. Our literary relationship has had it's rough patches over the years (I struggled with the abrupt transition in theme and tone from Needful Things to Gerald's Game/Dolores Claiborne), but I enjoy even his most-lamented efforts (I still squeal like a little girl and park myself in front of the TV whenever Maximum Overdrive happens to come on).

I simply can't wait to see his first novel-length take on re-imagining history.

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