Ah, if you just popped in from the latest PS Newsletter. I bid you a wintry welcome!

You’re probably all jazzed up with the news of our Anniversary Editions of Christine and Pet Sematary and so you should be: we’re working on all kinds of things to make them really special. It’s a tough call to single out novels from Steve’s stable that stand proud of all the others and I don’t propose to try doing that with these two because we’ll all of us end up in a massive argument. But I will say that Christine holds a special place in my affections. In the spring of 1983, Steve came across to England to promote his new novel and London’s Forbidden Planet organised him to make a special appearance at the store. But—and this is real horror, boys and girls—I couldn’t be there on the day of the signing, so I asked the guys at FP if they’d get Steve to sign my copy and I’d pick it up the following week. No problem (it’s hard not to love FP!)

But then came the $64,000 Question: what did I want him to say? Holy Moley! Without much thought, I said how about: “To Pete & Nicky, Ollie and Tim, and, of course, Kay” Hell, he’s written whole chapters not much longer than that!

Anyway, a few weeks later I was back in the store—I almost lived there in those days—to pick up my book. I opened it up and there it was. A dedication to Nicky and me, our two sons (to whom I was already reading strange bedtime stories) and my mother, Kathleen, a gentle Geordie lady (from Durham) who devoured Steve’s books almost as ferociously as I did.

Mum passed on more than 10 years back and, although I’ve met up with Bangor’s Finest a time or two and even exchanged emails, I never said thanks for that lengthy note on the first page of my copy of Christine. So I’m remedying that right now. Cheers, mate. My mum thought you were the bee’s knees. And so do I.