Duma Key is Stephen King’s new novel, to be released on January 22, 2008. The story is about a construction worker who is involved in a terrible accident and loses his arm. He then has paranormal phantom limb sensations. His wife divorces him. He thinks about suicide because of his pain and the loss of his family. However, he later discovers that for some reason he has become a very talented painter since the accident, so he moves to Florida where he starts painting beautiful pictures. This is a King story, so, of course, strange things start to happen with these pictures. You can read about 30 pages of Duma Key for free by clicking on the image below, which leads you to the Amazon product page:

Finally a new Stephen King novella, and it’s long: 21,000 words or 23 pages. King’s novella “The Gingerbread Girl” will be published in the July issue of Esquire (it will not be made available on Esquire.com, unfortunately):

Need a good scare (as opposed to the bad ones you get every day)? A new Stephen King thriller appears in its entirety in the July issue of Esquire, due out today. King’s “The Gingerbread Girl” is a 21,000-word novella covering 23 pages. “Over the last year, we’ve been trying to breathe life back into magazine fiction,” Esquire editor-in-chief David Granger said Monday in a statement. “The best way to do that is to publish nothing other than event fiction.” He means long stories by people you’ve actually heard of.

According to Esquire, “The Gingerbread Girl” tells “the story of Emily, who flees to the secluded Vermillion Key off of Florida’s coast after the death of her infant child. Her new neighbor also enjoys the privacy of the key, but the women he brings with him never return home.” They check in but they don’t check out. Kind of like a roach motel for people.

Stephen King novella in Esquire