This is the first Stephen King novel I've ever read. It's not that I avoided his work, it just never really happened. When I heard about this book, I knew that it would be inevitable for me. Not only do I love time travel, but like most Americans, I am fascinated with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I always have been, and when I was a kid I actually had very vivid nightmares about it. "Back and to the left," is still a phrase that gives me chills. Right away, I was hooked. I learned very quickly why King got to where he is. He is a master storyteller. Beyond that, he has the ability to turn something very ordinary to something quite more and he can go creepy very easily. It's all about his characters, each their own person that the reader can picture completely. As for the plot, well it was fantastic. I wouldn't have changed a thing about it, except to say that there were areas of the novel that dragged on. His amount of detail was sometimes more than I cared for and the novel probably could have been shorter, but who I am to judge? He earned those 850 pages. What I never expected was a love story. I never knew King had such a romantic side. That was a delightful surprise. I'm sure that I will think about and talk about this book for years to come and I'll probably recommend it to just about everybody.