Fairy Tale

Stephen King

Sep 2022 · Simon and Schuster · Narrated by Stephen King and Seth Numrich

About this audiobook

Winner of the 2023 Audie Award for Best Male Narrator

A #1 New York Times Bestseller and New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice!

Legendary storyteller Stephen King goes into the deepest well of his imagination in this spellbinding novel about a seventeen-year-old boy who inherits the keys to a parallel world where good and evil are at war, and the stakes could not be higher—for that world or ours.

Charlie Reade looks like a regular high school kid, great at baseball and football, a decent student. But he carries a heavy load. His mom was killed in a horrific accident when he was seven, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself—and his dad. When Charlie is seventeen, he meets a dog named Radar and her aging master, Howard Bowditch, a recluse in a big house at the top of a big hill, with a locked shed in the backyard. Sometimes strange sounds emerge from it.

Charlie starts doing jobs for Mr. Bowditch and loses his heart to Radar. Then, when Bowditch dies, he leaves Charlie a cassette tape telling a story no one would believe. What Bowditch knows, and has kept secret all his long life, is that inside the shed is a portal to another world.

Magnificent, terrifying, and “spellbinding…packed with glorious flights of imagination and characteristic tenderness about childhood, Fairy Tale is vintage King at his finest” (Esquire).

“Good, evil, a kingdom to save, monsters to slay—these are the stuff that page-turners are made from.” —Laura Miller, Slate

Ratings and reviews

First 25% great, the rest dissapointing. I was looking forward to King going back to fantasy after about a decade of writing (mostly) hard crime. The performance was OK but Seth voices one character (Claudia) and it is the most annoying voice I have heard anybody come up with for any character in an audiobook it was like nails on a chalkboard. Some of these reviews seem really bot-like, even getting the title of the book wrong. If you are new to King, skip this, read something else instead.

So far I'm 4 hours into the book, and it is good. The story is progressing quickly, and it keeps getting more interesting. King has kept the story fast paced, which is a welcome surprise. I like the way the book uses the occasional Stephen King narration stylistically. I'll update the review as I listen to more of the book. unlike what DJNvA said in his review, the word "GD" is only used 5 times in the free sample. So he obviously exaggerated in his count of 12 "GD" bombs. I think anybody familiar with King's writing knows that he uses a lot of curse words. this has always been the case, so his review really surprised me because swearing in his books is common. This book has no more cursing than any of his other books. King has never pulled punches in his language, and I don't know anyone who is surprised at that. also note he only is reviewing the book based on the 8 minute sample preview. so yeah. he just wanted to keep the star rating down because he for some reason got offended. .

always enjoyStephen kings imagination... this was close to talisman and a few other books he's written which i loved. i hope he will continue to writebooks!

About the author

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes the short story collection You Like It Darker, Holly, Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Seth Numrich won the Evening Standard Award for Outstanding Newcomer for Sweet Bird of Youth at The Old Vic. Additional Broadway and Off-Broadway credits include: The Merchant of Venice (Broadhurst Theatre), War Horse (Vivian Beaumont), Golden Boy (Lincoln Center), Travesties (American Airlines), Orpheus Descending (Theatr Clwyd), and Fathers and Sons (Donmar Warehouse). Numrich starred in four seasons of the AMC drama Turn: Washington’s Spies and appeared opposite Daniel Radcliffe in the film Imperium.