Unfortunately, Tabitha's position as "Stephen King's wife" overshadowed her career, a fact that led to considerable frustration, as she felt that professional and public interest in her writing leaned too heavily on her connection to Stephen while ignoring the merits of her work. As of 1999, Tabitha has largely retired from publishing, though she continues to add her voice to articles and op-eds, as well as contributing to many charitable endeavors both with and independent from her husband Stephen. It's been hinted that she still writes in the background, though whether or not these works will ever be made available remains to be seen.
Needless to say, with two powerhouse writers living under the same roof, Tabitha's works frequently contain playful sidelong references to Stephen's and vice versa.
Works:
- Small World - 1981
- Caretakers - 1983
- The Trap - 1986
- Pearl - 1988
- One On One - 1993
- The Book of Reuben - 1994
- Survivor - 1997
- Candles Burning - begun by Michael Mc Dowell; completed by Tabitha King in 2006
Non-Fiction Works
- Playing Like a Girl: Cindy Blodgett and the Lawrence Bulldogs Season of 93-94 - 1994
- Mid-life Confidential: The Rock Bottom Remainders Tour America with Three Chords and an Attitude - contributor, with photos by Tabitha King; published 1994
Unpublished Work
- The Sky in the Water - unpublished since at least 2000
- The Devil's Only Friend - unpublished since at least 2006
Tabitha King's work provides examples of:
- Anachronic Order: Pearl ends with the marriage of Pearl and Reuben, One on One catches up with them a few years later, while The Book of Reuben dips backwards in time to show the dissolution of Reuben's disastrous first marriage.
- Blended Family Drama: The Styleses. Mixed-race Key West transplant Pearl finds herself raising a ready-made family in majority-white, Yankee-to-the-bone Nodd's Ridge.
- Gorn: Make no mistake: for all the cozy smalltown living going on around here, violence is frequently and often graphically described. The Trap is a notable example, but sudden violence is not shied away from in other works.
- Hero of Another Story: Since the Nodd's Ridge books all take place in the same small town, main characters from previous novels often appear in later ones, such as Liv, the main character of The Trap, appearing in Pearl as a way of showing how she's coped since her ordeal. Also, amusingly, Dick Hallorann of The Shining appears in a flashback as the man who taught Pearl how to cook.
- Small Town, Big Hell: In Nodd's Ridge, everyone knows everyone's business and they are just as likely to draw together to support as they are to ostracize.
- Yo Yo Plot Point: One valid criticism of King's work is that plot points tend to recur, sometimes multiple times within the same book. For example, in Pearl, the narrative is broken up by several brawls at the local roadhouse that always end with the same cast of characters being first arrested, then released with a warning, while in One on One, Sam and Deanie tend to hash out the same arguments again and again even when they appeared to resolve the problem last time. King's defense is that in real life, people often do the same stupid things over and over without learning any lessons or resolving any issues.
