Never Flinch: Stephen King reads a passage from his latest novel

Stephen King‘s “Constant Readers” have read about the character Holly Gibney in the pages of his Bill Hodges trilogy (Mr. Mercedes, Finders Keepers, End of Watch), the novel The Outsider, the If It Bleeds short story from the collection of the same name, and his crime novel Holly. Holly is also at the heart of his next novel, Never Flinch, which is set to reach store shelves on May 27th – and with that date just one month away, King has sat down to read a passage from the novel on the Simon & Schuster Books YouTube channel. You can check it out in the embed at the bottom of this article. Before getting to the reading, King discusses his inspiration for writing this particular book and reveals that this is one of the rare King novels that was plotted out before he started writing it.

A few years ago, King told The Kingcast hosts, “I could never let Holly Gibney go from the Mr. Mercedes books. I mean, she was supposed to be a walk-on character and she just kind of stole the book and stole my heart.” Obviously, Holly still has his heart. He had mentioned a while ago that he was working on another Holly Gibney book, but at that time he was calling it We Think Not. He told the Talking Scared podcast that the book was turning out to be fairly long because there were “too many stories” going on in it. King said, “I feel kind of like the mad juggler. I’m trying to keep all the balls in the air and not drop any of them.“

Never Flinch has the following description: When the Buckeye City Police Department receives a disturbing letter from a person threatening to ‘kill thirteen innocents and one guilty’ in ‘an act of atonement for the needless death of an innocent man,’ Detective Izzy Jaynes has no idea what to think. Are fourteen citizens about to be slaughtered in an unhinged act of retribution? As the investigation unfolds, Izzy realizes that the letter writer is deadly serious, and she turns to her friend Holly Gibney for help. Meanwhile, controversial and outspoken women’s rights activist Kate McKay is embarking on a multi-state lecture tour, drawing packed venues of both fans and detractors. Someone who vehemently opposes Kate’s message of female empowerment is targeting her and disrupting her events. At first, no one is hurt, but the stalker is growing bolder, and Holly is hired to be Kate’s bodyguard — a challenging task with a headstrong employer and a determined adversary driven by wrath and his belief in his own righteousness. Featuring a riveting cast of characters both old and new, including world-famous gospel singer Sista Bessie and an unforgettable villain addicted to murder, these twinned narratives converge in a chilling and spectacular conclusion—a feat of storytelling only Stephen King could pull off.

King also told Talking Scared that he had ideas for a third Talisman book (he has since confirmed that he’s writing that one) and was more than 600 pages into writing a novel called The Dreamers, which was so creepy that he couldn’t think about it at night. “I had this image of a man who is under some kind of drug, and he opens his eyes and they turn black, and these tendrils start to come out of his eyeballs. It just creeped me out.” He added that the story was inspired by and is dedicated to No Country for Old Men author Cormac McCarthy. So it will be interesting to see if The Dreamers ends up being his next release.

Will you be picking up a copy of Stephen King’s Never Flinch? Check out the video of him reading a passage from the book, then let us know by leaving a comment below. Copies of the novel are available for pre-order at THIS LINK.

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