Billy Summers: Stephen King reads a passage from his latest novel

Last Updated on August 10, 2021

Back in January, Entertainment Weekly shared a short excerpt from Stephen King's latest novel, Billy Summers, which Scribner will be publishing on August 3rd. (You can pick up a copy at THIS LINK.) That excerpt can still be read at EW.com, and now in the video embedded below you can see King spend ten minutes reading the beginning of the book. His decision to do this reading outside on a windy day wasn't the best, there are times when you might struggle to hear him over the sound of wind blowing, but it's nice to see King read his own words anyway.

Billy Summers has the following official description: 

From legendary storyteller and #1 bestseller Stephen King, whose “restless imagination is a power that cannot be contained” (The New York Times Book Review), comes a thrilling new novel about a good guy in a bad job.

Billy Summers is a man in a room with a gun. He’s a killer for hire and the best in the business. But he’ll do the job only if the target is a truly bad guy. And now Billy wants out. But first there is one last hit. Billy is among the best snipers in the world, a decorated Iraq war vet, a Houdini when it comes to vanishing after the job is done. So what could possibly go wrong?

How about everything.

This spectacular can’t-put-it-down novel is part war story, part love letter to small town America and the people who live there, and it features one of the most compelling and surprising duos in King fiction, who set out to avenge the crimes of an extraordinarily evil man. It’s about love, luck, fate, and a complex hero with one last shot at redemption.

You won’t put this story down, and you won’t forget Billy.

I read everything King writes sooner or later, so Billy Summers is already on my "must read" list.