Rose Madder
Stephen King
Language: English
Pages: 656
ISBN: 1501143689
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
The #1 national bestseller about a woman who escapes an abusive marriage is “one of Stephen King’s most engrossing horror novels. Relentlessly paced and brilliantly orchestrated...fueled by an air of danger immediate and overwhelming” (Publishers Weekly).
"What woke her up was a single drop of blood, no larger than a dime."
After surviving fourteen years of hell in a violently abusive marriage, Rosie Daniels finally summons the courage to flee for her life. But leaving her husband, Norman, for a new city and a new start is a very daunting prospect. It's hard for Rosie not to keep looking over her shoulder, and with good reason—Norman's a police officer with the instincts of a predator, a force of relentless terror and savagery…a man almost mythic in his monstrosity. He's very good at finding people, even if he is losing his mind. Rosie’s only hope for salvation may lie in a far more dangerous place, where she must become her own myth and the woman she never knew she could be....
"Riveting, engrossing . . . packed with suspense." —People
"Relentlessly paced and brilliantly orchestrated, this cat-and-mouse game of a novel is one of King's most engrossing and topical horror stories." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Breathlessly paced suspense and terror . . . horrific thrills. . . .it's King's best!" —Miami Herald
a kid and dressed like a kid—jeans, Reeboks, Michael McDermott tee-shirt (I LOVE A GIRL CALLED RAIN, it said, whatever the fuck that meant)—but his entire head was covered by a rubber mask. It was Ferdinand the Bull. Ferdinand had a big, sappy smile on his face. His horns were decorated with garlands of flowers. Norman never hesitated, simply reached out and snatched the mask off the kid’s head. He got a pretty good handful of hair, too, but what the fuck. “Hey!” the kid screamed. With the mask
looked honest enough. He patted her hand. It was a quick touch, awkward and a bit timid. “If your husband beat you as badly as you say, Ms. McClendon, you’ve bettered your situation wherever you end up.” “Yes,” she said. “I think so, too. And if all else fails, there’s always the floor here, isn’t there?” He looked taken aback. “Oh, I don’t think it will come to that.” “It might. It could.” She nodded at two of the homeless people, sleeping side by side on their spread coats at the end of a
half-empty beer-stein in his hand. She looked at her watch and saw it was not quite six-thirty in the morning. Rosie lowered her head until she could see the man only from the comer of one eye, held the strap of her purse a little tighter, and walked a little faster. She guessed the man in the doorway would know where Durham Avenue was, but she had no intention of asking him for directions. He had the look of a guy who liked to talk to people—women, especially—up close. “Hey baby hey baby,” he
her entire life as a woman, and right now her emotions were a gorgeous stew. Eat dinner with him? Oh, sure. Right. Her throat had narrowed down to a pinhole and her stomach was sudsing like a washing machine. If he had been wearing anything dressier than clean, faded jeans and an oxford shirt, or if he’d given the faintest look of doubt to her own unpretentious skirt-and-sweater combination, she would have said no, and if the place he took her to had looked too difficult (it was the only word
an improvement over this morning, now that you’ve got your ... other business more or less in order?” “I’m sure there will be a big improvement,” Rosie said, and there was. VI The TEMPLE OF THE BULL 1 Before going to bed that Thursday night, Rosie plugged in her new phone again and used it to call Anna. She asked if Anna had heard anything new, or if anyone had seen Norman in the city. Anna gave a firm no to both questions, told her all was quiet, and then offered the old one