"She could write like Stephen King..."

When I was a guttersipe studying Canadian Literature at the University of Winnipeg I had a prof who was fond of saying,

"She could write like Stephen King but she doesn't. Why not?"

Maybe because nobody writes like Stephen King. 

Paradoxically this made me want to read Stephen King — whom I had never knowingly read. 

Recommendation: Stephen King is fine, especially old Stephen King, when he still had to answer to an editor and not the other way around. (These are my current thoughts on the writing of Stephen King.) But if you want to go Canadian you can't do much better than Guy Vanderhaeghe. Full disclosure: I've not yet read August Into Winter but if it's at all like his previous novels and short story collections (heh — good luck with that project!) I'm fer it!