Stephen Kinghas an upcoming book hitting shelves in 2025,Never Flinch, and it will hopefully embrace the balance he found in the best story that includes Holly Gibney. The author has had a busy few months.King’s new bookNever Flinchwas announced in November, right on the heels of theanthologyThe End of the World As We Know It, set in the world ofThe Stand.Never Flinchis the next book after 2024’s excellentYou Like It Darker, a collection of short stories, showingKing isn’t slowing down any time soon.
Multiple TV and movie adaptations of King’s projects are currently in the works, as well, including Mike Flanagan’sThe Life of Chuckand hisDark TowerTV adaptation, Oz Perkins’The Monkey,The InstituteTV adaptation, Francis Lawrence’sThe Long Walk, and Edgar Wright’sThe Running Man. Clearly, there’s no shortage of Stephen King content. Still,his books are where it all begins and ends, and a lot is riding onNever Flinchto continuethe Holly Gibney universeon as strong a footing as possible.
Stephen King’s Never Flinch Should Copy The Outsider’s Balance Of Mystery & Horror
It Was A Horror Story Wrapped In The Trappings Of A Traditional Procedural
In the past decade, King has shifted his focus to a new genre: the crime thriller. He kicked off his crime era with 2014’sMr. Mercedes, the first book in the Bill Hodges trilogy, and since then, his novels in that crime universe have all been well-received. Still, plenty of his longtime Constant Readers have been unhappy with this focus, much preferring his old-school horror writing. While the human criminals and serial killers in his crime books are monsters in their own right,most readers far prefer his supernatural monsters to mundane ones. EvenStephen King’s human villainsof the past have almost all had some sort of uncanny force driving them beyond mere human psychosis.
This is exactly whyThe Outsiderwas so good, and the TV miniseries adaptation so well-liked. It used the framework of the usual crime mysterybut at its heart was a supernatural, shapeshifting entity that killed children.The eponymous Outsider, also known as El Cuco, is derived from the El Cucuy/Coco myth of Spain and Mexico that serves as the equivalent of the culture’s boogeyman, a malevolent entity that kidnaps and eats children.The Outsiderdid a great job of starting out as a traditional detective procedural but slowly morphing into horror as the protagonists realized they were dealing with something inhuman. It was a nice return to form for King, andNever Flinchwill hopefully keep that balance of supernaturally-driven crime.
Never Flinch Could Surpass The Outsider If It Fully Embraces Stephen King’s Horror Roots
There’s A Lot Of Potential With Never Flinch
Not a whole lot is known yet aboutNever Flinch. What is known is that Holly Gibney will return, andit will blend together two different storylines and feature a few different perspectives. The villains are being framed as a killer on a revenge mission and a vigilante obsessed with a notable female celebrity. That’s all that’s known of the antagonists – who may actually be the same person, in the end; it’s not clear. It’s also not clear if the antagonists are driven by pure human psychosis and violence, likeMisery’s Annie Wilkes, or by a supernatural force possessing them or driving them to madness, such asThe Stand’s Trashcan Man, or Ed Deepneau inInsomnia.
Never Flinch
August 16, 2025
That said, plenty of Stephen King readers are hoping for the latter and a return to the author’s horror roots. IfNever Flinchadopts the same structure asThe Outsider, infusing the story with pure horror elements in the trappings of a procedural, it could be excellent. That’s not to say it will be a poor offering if it doesn’t:Stephen King can still write a heck of a yarn, even if there are no supernatural entities involved. And it’s understandable why King might be more interested in human evil in our current times than inhuman. Still, no one does horror likeStephen King, and ifNever Flinchremembers that, it will be a welcome full-circle moment to the first and best of his genres.
Stephen King
Discover the latest news and filmography for Stephen King, known for The Dark Tower series, The Stand, IT, The Shining, Carrie, Cujo, Misery, the Bill Hodges trilogy, and more.
