Winner of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award
In this spectacular New York Times bestselling father/son collaboration that “barrels along like a freight train” (Publishers Weekly), Stephen King and Owen King tell the highest of high-stakes stories: what might happen if women disappeared from the world of men?
In a future so real and near it might be now, something happens when women go to sleep: they become shrouded in a cocoon-like gauze. If they are awakened, if the gauze wrapping their bodies is disturbed or violated, the women become feral and spectacularly violent. And while they sleep they go to another place, a better place, where harmony prevails and conflict is rare. One woman, the mysterious “Eve Black,” is immune to the blessing or curse of the sleeping disease. Is Eve a medical anomaly to be studied? Or is she a demon who must be slain?
Abandoned, left to their increasingly primal urges, the men divide into warring factions, some wanted to kill Eve, some to save her. Others exploit the chaos to wreak their own vengeance on new enemies. All turn to violence in a suddenly all-male world. Set in a small Appalachian town whose primary employer is a woman’s prison, Sleeping Beauties is a wildly provocative, gloriously dramatic father-son collaboration that feels particularly urgent and relevant today.
Download and start listening now!
“A beauty of a horror tale…melds the elder King’s talent for exploring the darker sides of human nature when people are thrust into terrifying situations with his youngest son’s gift for juggling multiple genres and complex characters. The final chapters bring all their skills together in a fast-paced, explosive finale and emotional aftermath.”
— USA Today
“The unabridged audio of Sleeping Beauties, read by Marin Ireland, is—as Eugene of TWD would say—totally hunky-dunky.”
— Stephen King (audio review)“Ireland’s audio performance is tremendous throughout. She draws from a bottomless well of accents and tonal variations to make every character in this sprawling story sound unique. With each subplot treated with care and nuance, listeners will be hooked as this world without women descends into chaos. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile“It’s a violent, dystopian thrill ride that will leave you horrified—and hooked.”
— People“A fast-paced thriller… [that is] both a love letter to women everywhere and an incisive look at what drives men to violence, neatly wrapped in enough fantasy elements to soften the more caustic edges of the commentary.”
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette“Another horror blockbuster…In a kind of untold Greek tragedy meets Deliverance meets—well, bits of Mr. Mercedes and The Shawshank Redemption…A blood-splattered pleasure.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)Owen King is the author of The Curator, Double Feature, and We’re All in This Together: A Novella and Stories. He is the coauthor of Sleeping Beauties and Intro to Alien Invasion and the coeditor of Who Can Save Us Now? Brand-New Superheroes and Their Amazing (Short) Stories.
Stephen King has written more than sixty books, many hitting the #1 spot on the New York Times bestsellers list. He has won the World Fantasy Award, several Bram Stoker Awards, and the O. Henry Award for his story “The Man in the Black Suit.” He is the 2003 recipient of the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2007 he received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America. His epic works The Dark Tower and It are the basis for major motion pictures.
Marin Ireland is a voice artist who has won five Earphones Awards as well as the prestigious Audie Award for Best Female Narration in 2020. She is an award-winning actress known for her starring role in the Broadway show Reasons to Be Pretty, for which she was nominated for a Tony Award. She has appeared in a number of off-Broadway shows and television series, including Homeland, Unforgettable, The Killing, The Following, and others.