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WATCH: Stephen King Reads From His New Book 'Billy Summers'

Photo Courtesy of Simon & Schuster

The legendary author Stephen King read an excerpt of his upcoming book, Billy Summers, yesterday in a worldwide premiere on YouTube. Check out the video above for a sneak peek at the unputdownable novel, which will be released on August 3rd from Scribner Books (a Simon & Schuster/ViacomCBS company).

King has published countless page-turning #1 bestsellers. Now he's back with a masterful novel which is part war story, part love letter to small town America and the people who live there.

Billy Summers starts out like a thriller, a story about a bad guy who wants to be good, and it is thrilling, but readers quickly learn that King is up to much more. It's about love, luck, fate, and a complex hero with one last shot at redemption. Billy Summers is an assassin and the best in the business. He discovers a way to address the ghosts of his past, and that is the redemptive power of this extraordinary novel. "To see the undisputed master of horror shift into the realm of noir thrillers is proof that King can still surprise and astound us, all these decades later," according to Esquire. This story is the type you won't want to put down and Billy is the character you won't ever forget.

Watch King narrate a special selection from the book in the video above and don't miss Billy Summers, out on August 3 wherever books are sold.

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