New Stephen King Novel Fairy Tale Announced for This Fall

In his decades-spanning career, Stephen King has delivered audiences hundreds of unsettling and engaging stories, earning him more than enough right to retire from the world of genre storytelling indefinitely, but part of the author’s charm is that he enjoys crafting stories as much as fans enjoy reading them, with his new novel Fairy Tale set to hit shelves this fall. Rather than being abject horror, the new story will honor its title to deliver audiences a fantastical tale full of the battles between good and evil. Fairy Tale is expected to land on shelves on September 6th. Pre-orders are available on Amazon now. 

“What could you write that would make you happy?” King shared in a statement. “As if my imagination had been waiting for the question to be asked, I saw a vast deserted city — deserted but alive. I saw the empty streets, the haunted buildings, a gargoyle head lying overturned in the street. I saw smashed statues (of what I didn’t know, but I eventually found out). I saw a huge, sprawling palace with glass towers so high their tips pierced the clouds. Those images released the story I wanted to tell.”

Publisher Simon and Schuster describes the story, “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 hit-and-run accident when he was ten, and grief drove his dad to drink. Charlie learned how to take care of himself — and his dad. Then, when Charlie is 17, he meets a dog named Radar and his 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. 

“King’s storytelling in Fairy Tale soars. This is a magnificent and terrifying tale about another world than ours, in which good is pitted against overwhelming evil, and a heroic boy — and his dog — must lead the battle.”

Check out Fairy Tale when it lands on shelves on September 6th.

Are you looking forward to the new novel? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!