Misery

The #1 New York Times bestseller about a famous novelist held hostage in a remote location by his "number one fan." One of "Stephen King's best…genuinely scary" (USA TODAY). Adapted into the classic film Misery (1990).

Paul Sheldon is a bestselling novelist who has finally met his number one fan. Her name is Annie Wilkes, and she is more than a rabid reader-she is Paul's nurse, tending his shattered body after an automobile accident. But she is also furious that the author has killed off her favorite character in his latest book. Annie becomes his captor, keeping him prisoner in her isolated house.



Annie wants Paul to write a book that brings Misery back to life-just for her. She has a lot of ways to spur him on. One is a needle. Another is an axe. And if they don't work, she can get really nasty.



"Terrifying" (San Francisco Chronicle), "dazzlingly well-written" (The Indianapolis Star), and "truly gripping" (Publishers Weekly), Misery is "classic Stephen King...full of twists and turns and mounting suspense" (The Boston Globe). Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Never Flinch, the short story collection You Like It Darker (a New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024), Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale, Billy Summers, If It Bleeds, The Institute, Elevation, The Outsider, Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch, Finders Keepers, and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower, It, Pet Sematary, Doctor Sleep, and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Lindsay Crouse is an award-winning veteran of the New York stage. In television she has guest-starred on Law and Order, E.R., C.S.I., NYPD Blue, Alias, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Some of her best loved films include The Verdict, House of Games, The Insider, Daniel, Slapshot, Indian In The Cupboard and Places in the Heart, for which she received an Academy Award nomination.