"What a smart, sweet, spooky, sexy gem of a story.

In this story of Devon Jones--"a twenty-one-year-old virgin with literary aspirations … and a broken heart"--who spends the summer of 1973 at Joyland amusement park in North Carolina. Devon makes new friends, proves himself to the hard-core carnival workers, saves a girl’s life, befriends a dying boy (who has a secret gift), and falls for the boy’s protective, beautiful mother.

Devon learns about the woman who had been killed in the Funhouse, whose ghost still haunts Joyland. The second half of the story gets spookier, spinning into a murder mystery--but also a love story, and a coming-of-age-story, with some supernatural fun woven in."

"More than a trifecta, this is King at his narrative and nostalgic best."