Although Gwendy's Button Box, a 164-page novella, is written by noted horror writers Stephen King and Richard Chizmar, it's important to note that this isn't really much of a horror tale.

It's unsettling at times, and there are occasional horrific moments in the text, but this is better described as dark contemporary fantasy. It focuses on Gwendy Peterson, a 12-year-old girl in the small Maine town of Castle Rock, who is trying to lose a little weight by running up a long flight of stairs in a park. She meets a man there named Mr. Farris who overcomes her natural shyness of strangers and offers her a wooden button box, from which she can obtain chocolate candies that help control her appetite and rare, valuable coins. Other buttons can, apparently, destroy entire continents or, if she so chooses, the world. The final button allows her to focus her desires a little more finely.

Owning the box also has additional benefits, much as Arnie Cunningham benefitted in various ways from owning the eponymous car Christine in King's novel.

Now, King fans will likely recognize both Castle Rock and Farris as recurring elements from his work. Gwendy's, in fact, started out as a story by King that he never finished, and he ended up working with Chizmar to complete it. Frankly, it was hard to tell where one author's work ended and the other's began, although I am only a casual reader of them both.

I enjoyed the story, although there's not a lot to it. Readers will follow Gwendy's growth over 10 years, and they'll watch as she struggles with how and when to use the box. There are tragedies that may or may not be influenced by the box's presence in her life, but overall her life improves by having it -- even though it causes her a great deal of anxiety.

I read the story with a great deal of curiosity about where it would go. And for the most part, it was a satisfying read -- although, I'll be honest, the ending is weak.