Sleeping Beauties

July 31, 2017
This delicious first collaboration between Stephen King (Doctor Sleep) and his son Owen (Intro to Alien Invasion) is a horror-tinged realistic fantasy that imagines what could happen if most of the women of the world fall asleep, leaving men on their own. No one in Dooling County figures the sickness will affect their rural Appalachian life, but TV images of women asleep and unable to be woken, with white membranous stuff wrapped around their heads, makes residents undeniably distraught. Dr. Clinton Norcross of the Dooling Women’s Correctional Facility finds himself unexpectedly in charge of 114 female prisoners when an unhappy guard slips a bunch of Xanax into the coffee of warden Janice Coates, causing her to fall asleep and succumb to the sickness. Clinton’s wife, county sheriff Lila Norcross, is called to the scene of a double murder and explosion; en route, she nearly runs down a half-naked woman standing in the middle of the highway. That woman, Evie, seems to have some connection to the peculiar goings-on, though no one knows what it might be. The authors’ writing is seamless and naturally flowing. The book gets off to a slow start because of the amount of setup needed, but once the action begins, it barrels along like a freight train. Agent: Chuck Verrill, Darhansoff & Verrill Literary; Amy Williams, Williams Company.

Marin Ireland narrates this ambitious, unsettling collaboration between Stephen King and his son Owen. Women all over the world are going to sleep and not waking up. Even weirder, they become shrouded in cocoons, and there are dire consequences to disturbing their slumber. The cause is unknown to all except, maybe, Eve Black, an otherworldly woman who appears in West Virginia and is immune to the sleeping sickness. Though the novel is occasionally overlong and unfocused, 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. A.T.N. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award � AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine