Personal essays share the author's adventures after buying a vacation house on the Carolina coast and his reflections on middle age and mortality.

""You like it darker? Fine, so do I," writes Stephen King in the afterword to this magnificent new collection of twelve stories that delve into the darker part of life--both metaphorical and literal. King has, for half a century, been a master of the form, and these stories, about fate, mortality, luck, and the folds in reality where anything can happen, are as rich and riveting as his novels, both weighty in theme and a huge pleasure to read. King...

Eudora Honeysett has lived a full life, and witnessed the indignities and suffering of old age. At eighty-five, her end will be on her terms. A call to a clinic in Switzerland sets the plan in motion. Then she meets ten-year-old Rose Trewidney, a pint-sized rainbow of color and sparkling cheer. Eudora finds herself embarking on a series of adventures with Rose and their neighbor, the recently widowed Stanley. Eudora is reminded of her own childhood--...

"For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother's considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother's demise, followed by a cryptic...