Editor Reviews:

Product Description:
In the emotional aftermath of her baby's sudden death, Em starts running. Soon she runs from her husband, to the airport, down to the Florida Gulf and out to the loneliest stretch of Vermillion Key, where her father has offered the use of a conch shack he has kept there for years. Em keeps up her running -- barefoot on the beach, sneakers on the road -- and sees virtually no one. This is doing her all kinds of good, until one day she makes the mistake of looking into the driveway of a man named Pickering. Pickering also enjoys the privacy of Vermillion Key, but the young women he brings there suffer the consequences. Will Em be next?

Rating : - Running for her life

This novella from Stephen King is available only in audio, read very effectively by Mare Winningham. We already know that King can do amazing things with the novella and short story formats, and here he delivers his usual stylish writing. If you are willing to accept terror rather than horror as the genre, then The Gingerbread Girl will keep you absorbed for its two-hour running time.

The title character, Emily, runs to get away from the pain of a dead baby and a failing marriage. She leaves her home with nothing but a credit card and the clothes she has on. Taking refuge in her father's beach house in the Florida Keys, she runs in the off-season solitude. One day she finds a house occupied, sees a dead girl in the trunk of a car - and is abducted by a mad serial killer. Em winds up running for her life.

Em, the killer, and the steamy beauty of the island are the main elements in this tale. The plot may not be full of surprises but it parlays a somewhat predictable story into two hours of tension. Neither Em nor the knife-wielding stalker are as fully developed as a novel would permit, but when Stephen King's in charge, you know you're in for some good stuff. Like the gingerbread man who jumped off the pan and ran out the door, Em is running to save her life. Will she meet the same tragic end as the gingerbread man? You'll have to listen for yourself to find out.

Linda Bulger, 2008