Doctor Sleep: a novel (The Shining)

King, Stephen

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1444761188 ISBN 13: 9781444761184

Publisher: Hodder Paperbacks, 2014

An epic war between good and evil, a gory, glorious story that will thrill the millions of hyper-devoted readers of The Shining and wildly satisfy anyone new to the territory of this icon in the King canon.

King says he wanted to know what happened to Danny Torrance, the boy at the heart of The Shining, after his terrible experience in the Overlook Hotel. The instantly riveting DOCTOR SLEEP picks up the story of the now middle-aged Dan, working at a hospice in rural New Hampshire, and the very special twelve-year old girl he must save from a tribe of murderous paranormals.

On highways across America, a tribe of people called The True Knot travel in search of sustenance. They look harmless - mostly old, lots of polyester, and married to their RVs. But as Dan Torrance knows, and tween Abra Stone learns, The True Knot are quasi-immortal, living off the 'steam' that children with the 'shining' produce when they are slowly tortured to death.

Haunted by the inhabitants of the Overlook Hotel where he spent one horrific childhood year, Dan has been drifting for decades, desperate to shed his father's legacy of despair, alcoholism and violence. Finally, he settles in a New Hampshire town, an AA community that sustains him and a job at a nursing home where his remnant 'shining' power provides the crucial final comfort to the dying. Aided by a prescient cat, he becomes 'Doctor Sleep.'

Then Dan meets the evanescent Abra Stone, and it is her spectacular gift, the brightest shining ever seen, that reignites Dan's own demons and summons him to a battle for Abra's soul and survival . . .

The first print run of DOCTOR SLEEP in paperback has two jacket styles. These are only available while stocks last and if you are ordering online we cannot guarantee which cover you will receive.

Review:

King's own supplies of creative steam show little sign of being depleted. (The Sunday Times)

A powerful sequel to The Shining

(Observer)

King finds a mode of the supernatural that has a melancholic beauty (Guardian, Book of the Week)

All the virtues of his best work (Margaret Atwood, New York Times)

A gripping, powerful novel, all the more so for being patently heartfelt (Financial Times)

King is a very remarkable and singular writer. He can catch dialogue, throw away an observation or mint a simile, sometimes, brilliantly...Storytelling is everything - and by golly does he know how to carry the reader. (Observer)

Doctor Sleep is King expertly returning to the milieu of his most beloved novels, combining not just elements from the original Shining but themes and imagery familiar from King's books, including Carrie, Salem's Lot, Firestarter and It. It also has a structure King has often utilised before, with a group of essentially good people having to band against a gang of baddies but within this structure King works masterful variations, showing just with a brilliant storyteller he is. When King is on form, as he is in Doctor Sleep, he has no rivals for sheer page-turning suspense. It is as addictive as anything he has written: a triumph from the world's finest horror novelist. (Sunday Express)

It's a gripping, powerful novel, all the more so for being patently heartfelt. (Financial Times)

King finds a mode of the supernatural that has a melancholic beauty while avoiding spiritualist blather (Guardian)

Doctor Sleep is a warm, entertaining novel by a man who is no longer the prisoner of his demons, but knows where to find them when he needs to call on them. (Daily Telegraph)

Book Description:

From master storyteller Stephen King, his unforgettable and terrifying stand-alone sequel to The Shining - an instant international No. 1 bestseller